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I 



IN VANITY FAIR 



i 



IN 
VANITY FAIR 

A TALE OF FROCKS 
AND FEMININITY 



BY 



ELEANOR HOYT BRAINERD 

Author of " The Misdemeanors of Nancy " 



NEW YORK 
MOFFAT, YARD ^ COMPANY 

1906 



»»"t W.' » mM «WWM H 



UBRARY of CONGRESS 
TwoGoDies Received 

APR 18 1906 

. Gopyrijsrht Entry 

cwkss (y *xc. (Jo, 



Copyright, 1906, by 

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 

New York 



Published, March, 1906 



The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



PREFACE 

The Parisienne, in her subtler phases, is a theme 
for a feminist of genius; and this Httle book does not 
venture upon the psychological deep seas. 

Grave issues are tangled in the game of fashion- 
making; but the world through which My Lady of the 
Chiffons dances lightly to gay music reeks of frivolity, 
and the story of the fashionable Parisienne and of the 
haunts in which she obtains and displays her incom- 
parable frocks must needs be a story of folly and 
extravagance, best told, perhaps, by snap-shots of the 

inner courts of Vanity Fair. 

The Author. 



vu 



CONTENTS 

IN VANITY FAIR 
CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Frocks and Femininity ... . . . 15 

The Frenchwoman's creed ; the science of being gay; feminine 
types in French society; the demi-monde of Paris; Parisian 
salons. 

CHAPTER II 

The Tyrants of the Rue de la Paix ..... 28 

Paris and the art of dress; Worth and the old masters; Paquin and 
the new school; the clienteles of the great men. 

CHAPTER III 

The Famous Ateliers ........ 47 

How the work is done; the saleswomen; the mannequins; the 
ouvrieres; the system; the launching of .the modes. 

CHAPTER IV 

FiFI AND THE DuCHESS ON THE TuRF ..... 64 

Racing near Paris ; round the braziers of Auteuil ; the day of 
the Grand Prix. 

CHAPTER V 

Le Sport in Paris . ........ 78 

Motor mania ; Parisian golf and French golfers ; fashion and 
tennis at Puteaux ; the motor-boat fad. 

ix 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

The Fine Art of Dining -...,.. 97 

Al fresco dining in the Bois; with le Roi galant at the Kenri 
Quatre; where the Pompadour held sway ; the restaurants of 
the town; Frederic, "King of the Ducks." 

CHAPTER Vn 

In Normandy with Madame 118 

Gay Trouville and chic Deauville ; at the tables of the Hotel 
de Paris ; in the Casino ; some inns and the motor. 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Merry-go-Round . . ..... 140 

Winter in Paris ; five o'clock tea and chiffons ; the theatres of 
Paris ; the Palais de Glace and its crowd ; spring fetes and 
foHies. 

CHAPTER IX 

The Hunting Season . . . . . . . . 163 

The Frenchman and la chasse ; at the chateaux ; venery new 
and old ; with the hounds of the Duchesse d'Uzes. 

CHAPTER X 

Under Southern Skies ........ 182 

Cannes and the world ; Nice and the flesh ; Monte Carlo and 
the devil. 

CHAPTER XI 

Les Americaines . . . . . . . . .210 

The French frock and the American woman; American buyers; 
feminine extravagance in America; some famous orders; the 
ready-made costume and its effect upon dress. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



/ 



The Return from the Grand Prix Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Playing at Country Life 20 

Doeuillet passes Judgment . 40- 

Beer and his IMannec^uins 52- 

The Day of the Drags , 66 ^ 

At Longchamps 72 >- 

The First Sportswoman of France . 84 

Fashion's Ferry 90 

The Latest Plaything of the Duchesse d'Uzes 98 

'^Gossip Street" at Trouville . 120 

In the Club Grounds at-Deauville 130 

At A Rothschild Garden Party 154 

Baronne Henri de Rothschild at the Meet 166 . 

The Blessing of the Hounds at Bonnelles 178 

The Palace OF Folly — Monte Carlo 186' 

The Crowd at Monte Carlo 196 / 



/ 



-♦.. 

y 



h 



\ 



IN VANITY FAIR 



IN VANITY FAIR 

CHAPTER I 

FROCKS AND FEMININITY 

CLOTHES and the woman we sing! Given the 
themes, Paris is obviously the only appropriate 
setting. Nowhere else do the kindred cults of frocks 
and femininity kindle such ardent devotion. Nowhere 
else are women so enthusiastically decorative. There 
are women more beautiful than the Parisiennes, there 
are women who spend as much money upon their clothes. 
Pouf! What is beauty unadorned? What is beauty 
adorned — provided it is not chic. 

That crisp little monosyllable is sadly abused by our 
Anglo-Saxon saleswomen, but it is a master word for 
all that, a great word holding in solution the quintes- 
sence of things Parisian. It means a subtle something 
before which mere beauty is humble, and mere luxury 
is banal. It means coquetry, audacity, charm. It 
means a thing evanescent, impalpable, unmistakable, 
absurd, adorable, a thing deliciously feminine, a thing 
essentially of the world worldly. 

That the word should be a French word with no 
exact equivalent in another tongue is as it should be. 
The Parisienne is the true "femme chic." She has the 

15 



i6 IN VANITY FAIR 

secret and she realizes its value, makes a fetich of it, 
devotes herself to it w^ith a zeal that could flourish 
nowhere outside of Paris. There are charming v^omen 
all over thev^orld, but nowhere is femininity so conscien- 
tiously occupied in being charming as it is in Paris. 

Your true Parisienne begins her creed with, "I 
believe in coquetry"; and by coquetry she means not 
merely embryonic flirtation, but all that goes to make 
sophisticated charm. She is coquette from her cradle 
to her grave, from her first communion frock to her 
last cap and shawl. She does not depend upon her 
natural advantages, she is not unconscious, not simple. 
She is deliberately, insistently charming, and to gain 
that end she shows the infinite capacity for taking 
trouble which amounts to genius. The ill-natured call 
the result artificiality, and they are right; but the fine 
art of the artificiality is a thing to conjure with, and 
through its aid the Frenchwoman retains her charm 
long after youth and its bloom are fled. Wit wears 
better than complexion, and tact outlasts figure. Inci- 
dentally, much may be done to patch up complexion 
and figure if wit and tact are on hand to carry off the 
counterfeit. 

To be sure there is something a trifle depressing 
about the faded ghosts of Parisian youth, the old ladies 
of Paris who refuse to admit defeat, and, painted, 
bejewelled, vivacious, defy the years. 

Yes, there's a sadness in the struggle, a gentle melan- 
choly such as serves poets for rondels and villanelles, 
but they are not sad, themselves, those old ladies of 



FROCKS AND FEMININITY 17 

Paris. Bless your heart, no! They are gay, excessively 
gay. They flutter their fans and toss their curled heads 
and scatter wrinkled smiles and unwrinkled bon mots, 
and succeed, after a fashion, in their aim; for they are 
delightful, these faded, worldly belles. They keep their 
youthful hearts, their keen wits, their absorbing interest 
in men and things. They have not forgotten how to 
be amusing; and, under their cleverly applied rouge 
and powder and false hair and general artificiality, they 
are still sympathetic, still witty, still wise. Not one's 
ideal of placid old age, not, perhaps, the grandmothers 
one would choose for the family tree, but delightful 
companions still; coquettes who have outlived their 
youth but not their finesse. 

Perhaps the cult of coquetry which is the pervasive 
spirit of French society would be impossible outside 
the atmosphere in which it flourishes. It is a part of 
Parisian tradition, it colours Parisian values, determines 
Parisian standards. Insensibly the woman who lives 
in Paris surrenders to this spirit though she may have 
come of Puritan stock or of Roundhead ancestry. It is 
in the air of Paris. If one cannot breathe the air and 
assimilate the germs, one departs. That is all. One 
returns to Boston or Kansas City or Glasgow or Tewkes- 
bury. Doubtless those women who flee from the insid- 
ious assault lead lives more estimable than those who 
succumb, but they do not learn the gentle art of coquetry 
in its Parisian form. So much the better for the 
quietude of Boston and Kansas City and Glasgow and 
Tewkesbury. 



i8 IN VANITY FAIR 

It is probable, highly probable, that the foreigner who 
recklessly remains in Paris and invites the spirit of the 
place will show her inevitable lapse from Puritanical 
grace first in her underwear. French lingerie is the 
sign and symbol of French femininity. It is the refine- 
ment of luxury, the quintessence of coquetry. 

To wear a fortune in a gown is something, but to 
wear a fortune in lace and handwork and cobweb linen 
hidden away under a frock demurely simple is more, 
and the Parisienne adores "le dessous." Jewels she 
may lack — though not for want of conscientious effort 
to obtain them — but dainty petticoats she will have, 
and, having them, she will wear them, and wearing 
them, she will show them. Why not contribute to the 
sum of humanity's simple joys ? 

An old lady from a little Missouri town strayed from 
a Cook's party one day, at the entrance to the Louvre; 
and, some hours later, a young countrywoman of hers 
found her occupying one of the Champs Elysees chairs 
and watching with fearful joy the stream of French 
womanhood picking its way along walks still wet from 
an all-night rain. 

The old lady clutched the arm of her fellow American 
and turned a puzzled face away from the passing show. 

"My dear, just look at those petticoats and stock- 
ings!" she gasped. "The creatures haven't any idea 
of hiding them. I've been watching for two mortal 
hours and there hasn't been a let-up yet. Some are 
finer than others, that's all. But they're all showy, 
and every single woman has her dress tucked up so 



FROCKS AND FEMININITY 19 

you can't miss them. When I saw the first ones I 
thought I'd struck the French women you read about, 
— the ones who aren't proper, you know, and I was so 
interested; but then they kept coming so steadily that 
I got all mixed up. Hundreds have gone by, all holding 
their skirts like that and every one of them swishing 
silk or lace rujffles and showing silk stockings, — and it 
isn't humanly possible, even in Paris, that they're all 
bad, now is it ?" 

Bad ? Not the least in the world. They were merely 
French. The petticoat of Pleasantville, Missouri, and 
the petticoat of Paris are two separate and distinct 
things, and the old lady had vaguely grasped an impor- 
tant fact not down upon the Cook's party schedule of 
information. The Parisienne is Paris. Incidentally 
there are picture galleries and museums. 

The amount of money spent on the "dessous" by a 
Parisian woman of fashion is madly extravagant and 
entirely characteristic. It is but a detail of that religion 
of luxury whose high priests centre in the Rue de la 
Paix. The average Frenchwoman has a thrifty and 
frugal side, but the extravagant Frenchwoman spends 
her money with a light-hearted gaiety and a maximum 
of picturesque effect. The most prodigal patrons of 
the great dressmakers and jewellers in the Rue de la Paix 
are Americans, but the most brilliant figures in the 
fashionable Parisian world are French. The born 
Parisienne is the supreme coquette. She wears her 
clothes with an incomparable air. There is a touch of 
the actress in her, and in the matter of feminine fashion 



20 IN VANITY FAIR 

art can give points to nature, so the Frenchwoman wears 
with artfully artless grace and naturalness creations 
whose audacity would reduce a woman of any other 
nationality to an awkward self-consciousness that would 
ruin the effectiveness of the costume. 

Even could one conceive of all the great French 
dressmakers transplanted to another land, only in Paris 
could the modes be successfully launched, for only there 
can monsieur find the women who are ready and able 
to carry off triumphantly even the most revolutionary 
of creations, who have the courage and confidence to 
exploit models strikingly novel — always provided those 
models have beauty and cachet to commend them. It 
is the Parisienne, too, who is willing to buy the most 
extravagantly fragile and perishable of frocks and who 
will wear them regardless of consequences; who will, 
moreover, smile most cheerfully when, having fulfilled 
its mission, the costly frock is crushed, drabbled, 
ruined. 

"It had un succes fou, M'sieu!" she says blithely to 
the maker when she sees him next. That is quite 
enough. A great success on one occasion justifies any 
extravagance, and why allow a spoiled frock to obscure 
an agreeable memory ? 

King Alfonso attended one of the famous race meetings 
near Paris one day last summer, and all the smart Pari- 
sian world turned out to do him honour. The display of 
frocks and millinery was a notable one. The pesage 
was crowded with women in the airiest and most elabo- 
rate of summer toilettes and, suddenly, the heavens 




Playing at Country Life 



FROCKS AND FEMININITY 21 

opened and a torrent of rain poured down. Such a 
scurrying and twittering; such little moans and shrieks; 
such laughter and jesting! Bad temper ? Not a bit of 
it. Things were quite bad enough without losing one's 
temper. So they chatted and joked and achieved bon 
mots that almost reconciled them to the facts that their 
rouge was streaked and their plumes were drabbled 
and their curls were straggling and their frocks were 
limp. The sun came out and the demoralized toilettes 
emerged from under cover, mere wrecks of their former 
beauty; but the wearers carried the situation off with a 
good-natured vivacity to which no other women would 
have been equal. The afternoon was a particularly 
gay one, and the prevailing philosophy was voiced by 
one little countess who was heard to say to a friend as 
they stood waiting for their automobiles: 

"The frocks are spoiled, absolutely spoiled.- C'est 
dommage, — but, ma chere, what an opportunity for 
the petticoats and the feet, n'est-ce pas ? Me, — I 
found much consolation in the real lace in my white 
stockings and in my new shoe buckles, — Va! One 
sees, every day, the frocks. To-day, for the first time, 
I know intimately the ankles of all my friends." 

Possibly the countess gave her maid a bad quarter 
hour after she reached home; but for the benefit of the 
public she stood there, insouciant, smiling, debonair, 
with her chiffon frock clinging forlornly to her shapely 
little figure, with her tulle hat gummed to a disarranged 
coiffure and its plumes drooping Hke funeral emblems 
over her left ear, but with her spirits intact. Not for 



22 IN VANITY FAIR 

nothing did she have some of the best blood of France 
in her veins. It is sporting blood, — that best blood of 
France. 

Concerning the morals of French womankind, the 
serious may write, — and the less they know about 
Paris — provided they are Anglo-Saxon — the more 
fluently they will write; for intimate acquaintance with 
Parisian life and sentiment is sadly prejudicial to ortho- 
dox Anglo-Saxon standards, and it is diflGicult to be 
severe with the Parisienne if one knows her. One 
disapproves of her, in certain of her phases, perhaps, 
but one learns the tolerant shoulder shrug of her nation. 
She is so very amusing, and Paris is, first of all, "le 
monde ou Ton s'amuse." 

One may like Paris or not. One may choose to live 
in Paris or to live elsewhere, but one thing the fair- 
minded will all admit. This capital city of the kingdom 
of Vanity Fair is gay. The Parisians have reduced 
gaiety to a science, luxury to an art. There may be 
tragedy behind the curtain; but, before the public, life 
goes to a merry tune. It is quite possible that smart 
society, the world over, is as rotten as our novelists, 
dramatists, and preachers would have us believe; but, 
at least, in Paris it is not dull. Where American smart 
society is spectacular, French smart society is chic. 
Even in the half world the distinction holds. The 
demi-mondaine of New York — or the nearest approach 
to the demi-mondaine which New York furnishes, for 
our standards are uncompromising and we recognize no 
"half world" — is vulgar. The demi-mondaine of 



FROCKS AND FEMININITY 23 

Paris is — one can but have recourse once more to that 
untranslatable comprehensive word "chic." 

Immorality, we are solemnly assured, is none the less 
immoral because it is not banal. Probably it is more 
deplorable in proportion as it takes on attractiveness; 
but we are not moralizing, merely stating facts, and the 
fascination of the great Parisian demi-mondaine is a 
well-established fact. 

To begin with, she is the best dressed woman in the 
world. Any of the famous dressmakers of Paris, who 
are the world's arbiters of fashion, will tell you that. 
She has the money and the taste, and with her, even 
more than with the Parisienne of the beau monde, 
being charming is a metier. She supplements natural 
attractions with every resource of art. She is, as a rule, 
clever, tactful, witty. Often she is brilliant, and the 
nearest approach to the famous salons of old France are 
to be found to-day in the homes of certain Parisiennes 
who are frankly demi-mondaine or dwell in that middle 
world twixt ''beau" and "demi" where, sometimes, the 
name "artiste" casts a broad mantle of charity over 
irregularity of life. There are countesses and princesses 
of the blood who play at salon making in Paris, and 
who would be in the seventh heaven could they once 
call under their roofs the famous men who flock to 
certain salons where mesdames of the beau monde may 
not follow. Great litterateurs, painters, sculptors, 
musicians, scientists gather at certain informal evenings, 
certain famous Httle dinners. And mark you, everything 
here is comme il faut — yes, indeed. Let the student 



24 IN VANITY FAIR 

of morals who associates the phrase demi-mondaine 
only with Tenderloin orgies revise his vocabulary. 
Orgies of the familiar kind he can find in Paris. They 
are easily found; but he will have considerable difficulty 
in gaining admittance to the salon of the great artiste 
whose life history has been, to put it mildly, unconven- 
tional, or to the salon of the famous demi-mondaine. 
Once admitted, he will need wit and worldly wisdom to 
hold his own. One hears of little dinners where the 
quantity of liquor drunk falls far below Tenderloin 
standards, but where the poet of the moment composes 
sonnets to his hostess's eyebrow; where the famous 
composer replies to Madame's "A new song, mon cher. 
I must have a song all my own," by sitting down at the 
piano and working out a chanson which all Paris will 
be whistling a few months later; where the petted tenor 
from the Opera sings street ballads, and the great 
diplomat chats international scandal, and the successful 
artist and feminist sketches portraits of his hostess 
upon the fly-leaf of the autograph copy of the academi- 
cian's book which the author has just presented to her. 

Yes; one hears of those happenings in the little house 
at Neuilly or in the mansion on the Boulevard Males- 
herbes, or wherever the rendezvous may be, and one 
struggles vainly to adjust one's vision to the Parisian 
perspective to understand the Parisian attitude toward 
life. It is disturbing to find impropriety so devoid of 
the lurid light in which melodrama pictures it. One's 
moral vertebra softens in Paris. 

But there are Parisiennes and Parisiennes. There is 



FROCKS AND FEMININITY 25 

the aristocrat of the St. Germain — and even aristocratic 
virtue is not dull in Paris. There is the v^ife of the 
millionaire tradesman. There are the v^omen folk of 
the great banking house. There are the ladies of the 
diplomatic circle, there are exiled queens and resident 
grand duchesses. There are the Americans. There 
are the artistes. There are the demi-mondaines, the 
cocottes. And there is Mimi. She is not the worst of 
the group, this unimportant Httle Mimi, not the v^orst, 
and by no means the least coquette; but she is not a 
bird of fine feathers and does not belong in our story. 

The great lady of Paris is grande dame to her finger- 
tips, whether she nurses the traditions of the old regime 
in her exclusive salon in the Faubourg St. Germain or 
follows after such new gods as 'Me sport" and broadens 
her visiting list to include the trades and arts, — pro- 
vided always that the trade and the art have paid well 
enough to lift tradesman and artist above their metiers. 
France loves genius, but for social success, in Paris, 
genius is not enough. 

One must have money, wit, and tact to succeed in 
smart French society without the prestige of aristocratic 
birth. If one has the birth in addition, so much the 
better. 

There are salons to which only those to the nobility 
born are pHgible, but they are few, and modern French 
society is prone to go where it will be most skilfully 
amused, where it will find the most luxury, the greatest 
originality, the most volatile gaiety. The receptions of 
the Duchesse de Rohan are impressive, her invitations 



26 IN VANITY FAIR 

are in the nature of patents of nobility, but the Comtesse 
Pillet-Will's extravagantly original fetes are more popu- 
lar, and the average Parisian elegante would rather 
go ballooning with the exceedingly modern young 
Duchesse d'Uzes than talk politics in the salon of 
the Comtesse Jean de Castellane or listen to the 
excellent music which the Comtesse de Beam provides 
for her guests. Not that one objects to politics and 
music. Music is "tres chic" as furnished in the salons 
of the Comtesse de Beam, the Marquise de Castrone, 
the Vicomtesse de Tredern, and the other society leaders 
who are noted for this especial variety of entertainment; 
and, though the great political salon is a thing of yester- 
year, the Parisienne always takes an interest in politics. 
It is a game, and she adores games, especially games in 
which men are the counters. She is a born intrigante, 
and here is a field for legitimate intrigue. Moreover, 
many men are devoted to politics, and is not sympathy 
the corner-stone of the foundation of that power over 
men which is the breath of the Frenchwoman's nostrils ? 

So, many of the fair Parisiennes play at politics, but 
few play so charmingly as does the Comtesse Jean. 
Comtesse Boni de Castellane, too, has political preten- 
sions, and shows a devotion to the royalist cause all the 
more vehement because grafted upon democratic birth 
and training; but it is when they pay forty thousand 
dollars for a week-end house party that the Boni de 
Castellanes loom large upon the Parisian horizon. 
Their salon is not epoch-making. 

Parisian society dabbles in politics, music, art, spirit- 



FROCKS AND FEMININITY 27 

ualism, amateur theatricals, and a host of other things, 
but it plunges bodily into racing. The Jockey Club of 
France, which controls the turf in France, is a gentle- 
man's club, and its members are, with the exception of 
a few rich bourgeois, representatives of the most aristo- 
cratic houses of France. The Due de Noailles, the Due 
de Dondeauville, Prince d'Arenberg, Due de Fezensac, 
Comte Pillet-Will, Vicomte d'Harcourt and a host of 
other men as well known are on the list of membership, 
and it is natural enough that the great racing events 
near Paris should bring out the flower of Parisian society 
as well as the heterogeneous crowds common to race 
tracks. 

"Le sport," too, imported from England and con- 
scientiously fostered for a long time before it showed 
signs of taking firm root in French soil, is now a con- 
spicuous feature of Parisian social life; and golf clubs, 
tennis clubs, polo clubs, etc., are the chic rendezvous 
even for that large percentage of Parisian society which, 
for all its vivacity, would not, under any suasion, lend 
itself to active exercise. One does not look well when 
one exercises too violently, and costumes suitable for 
golf and tennis are not nearly as fascinating as those 
that may be worn by lookers-on. Therefore, since 
looking one's best is a sacred duty, and since attrac- 
tive frock wearing is the Parisienne's religion, Madame, 
as a rule, prefers to look on. She has sporting blood, 
but, as we have already said, she is, before all else, 
''coquette." 



CHAPTER II 

THE TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX "" 

If one would write of Vanity Fair, one must write of 
the Rue de la Paix and the Place Vendome; for the 
faithful worshippers of the vanities turn toward that 
quarter of Paris as devoutly as a Mohammedan toward 
Mecca. There the high priests of Fashion hold sway, 
and women the world over acknowledge with reverent 
salaams of spirit that there is no fashion but Paris 
fashion, though ideas as to Fashion's true prophets may 
differ. 

Let no one speak lightly of the French frock. It has 
been a world power, and it's story, if adequately written, 
would be a most absorbing and comprehensive one. 
Drama of all kinds has clung round its frills and fur- 
belows. Revelations philosophical, historical, sociologi- 
cal, lurk in its shimmering folds. Men have died for it, 
women have sold youth and honour, husband, child, and 
lover, for it. It is Fashion's supreme expression, and, 
on the altar of Fashion all things precious have, first 
and last, been offered up. 

Even the French scarcely realize the vital issues in- 
volved in the making of the Fashions, but they, at least, 
approach the matter with becoming gravity. Americans 

28 



TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX 29 

are said to be, next to the French, the best dressed women 
in the world; but there is a certain lamentable levity in 
the American attitude toward dress, while the French 
take everything pertaining to clothes seriously. One 
need only read a page from one of the best French 
fashion journals to grasp the national point of view. 

Here is no mere curt chronicle of the modes. The 
writer's rhapsodies put our spring poets to shame. 
Called upon to describe a creation in pink taffeta, he 
dips his pen in May morning dew and invokes the muses. 
He soars upon the viewless wings of poesy, and, soaring, 
sings impassioned chants of praise; he culls his similes 
from all the realm of beauty, his adjectives glow with fer- 
vour, he quotes from the classics, he draws upon history 
and fable, he winds up with a fervid apostrophe to fair 
woman, — and not one of his French readers smiles. 
They see no extravagance in his periods. The pink 
taffeta was from Paquin. Upon what shrine could 
flowery tributes more fittingly be laid ? 

The artists of the French fashion journals approach 
their work in the same spirit. One uses the word artist 
advisedly, for they are really artists, those men who 
picture modish femininity for the Parisian fashion 
journals of the highest class. On this side of the water, 
fashion illustrators, with one or two exceptions, attempt 
nothing more than an accurate reproduction of the details 
of frock or wrap or hat. There their whole duty ends, 
and as for producing a clever and charming drawing, — 
perish the thought! The artist who can do that scorns 
fashion work; or, if he condescends to it, ranks it with 



30 IN VANITY FAIR 

his advertisements for soup or sapolio, and refuses to 
honour the pot boilers with his signature. 

"They do these things better in France." There, a 
man may have studied seriously, may have seen his 
pictures given place on salon w^alls, and yet may take 
pride in being one of the foremost fashion illustrators 
in France. For example, there is Fournery. He is, 
perhaps, the most popular of the French fashion artists; 
he commands large prices, has more orders than he can 
fill, is independent to the last degree — and he loves the 
work, puts into it the best of the skill that he has ac- 
quired through earnest study, the skill that has won him 
a place in the salon, when he has taken time from his 
serious fashion work for such frivolous side issues. 

He is a feminist, this artist. Everything that goes to 
make up feminine coquetry and charm interests him. 
He is willing to draw a picture of a fashionable frock, 
for the joy of drawing the woman who can successfully 
wear it. The "femme chic'' is his chosen theme. If 
editors pay him large sums for gowning his women in 
certain costumes, so much the better. 

A visit to Fournery and a study of his methods would 
suggest a new point of view to the American artist who 
thinks anything will do for a fashion sketch. 

One finds a delightful studio, a vivacious and enthu- 
siastic young man, — French to his finger-tips. 

"You want to know how I do my work ? A la bon- 
heur! It is quite simple, my method. I draw first the 
nude figure, — from life, bien entendu. One must have 
the perfect figure before one can display the frock at its 



TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX 31 

best, n'est-ce pas ? A wooden woman cannot show off a 
beautiful gown. The wearer must be graceful, supple, 
svelte, chic. When one has the woman one adjusts her 
lingerie. One corsets her — but why not ? The corset 
is an abomination perhaps, but it is worn, and there 
are corsets and corsets. Since women must wear corsets, 
let them wear good ones. The fashionable figure is not 
that of the Venus de Milo, but what would you ? It is 
the fashionable figure. The fashionable gown is made 
to go over it. Voila! My woman must be perfectly 
corsetted upon the accepted lines, but with as little 
violence as possible to nature's grace. Then the gown! 
One fits it to the figure, one makes it cling where it 
should cling, flare where it should flare, bring the 
wearer's best points into view, as the wearer exhibits 
the best points of the frock. One introduces an inter- 
esting background. It must be cleverly drawn, that 
background, a line here, a line there, nothing to distract 
the eye from the figure but an appropriate setting, — a 
glimpse of the pesage at Auteuil, the terrace at Monte 
Carlo, a corner of the Cafe de Paris, a vista on the Avenue 
des Acacias. — There you have it, Madame, my fashion 
picture. Elle est gentille, n'est-ce pas, cette petite femme 
chic?" 

She is most assuredly "gentille." So is the "femme 
chic" as Drian pictures her, — Drian the youthful, who 
might stand at the head of our conscientiously monoto- 
nous portrayers of pretty women, were he working in 
New York instead of Paris. Many of those same 
American exponents of feminine types draw badly 



32 IN VANITY FAIR 

enough to shock the clever young Frenchman, but they 
would marvel at his pride in his fashion work, — for 
he is proud. He recognizes the importance of his 
metier. 

It is this popular attitude toward things sartorial that 
has made Paris the centre of the dressmaking world. 
The great dressmaker may be born anywhere, but even 
a sartorial genius, born to dressmaking as the sparks fly 
upward, will not come into his artistic heritage outside 
of Paris. Your artistic temperament must have its sym- 
pathetic environment, and only in Paris is the artist 
dressmaker ranked with the immortals, only in Paris is 
dressmaking classed among the fine arts. Worth, the 
great, blushed unseen in the dark unfathomed caves of 
Birmingham; Beer wasted his sweetness on the desert 
air of Berlin; the Callot Sisters are from Provence and 
owe to the land of Tartarin their bold originality of 
invention; the Maison Drecol, famous in Paris and the 
foundation of Viennese fashion, was established by a 
Madame Wagner from Amsterdam. Once rooted in 
Parisian soil, these insignificant ones waxed great and 
famous, and their history is the history of fully two thirds 
of the well-known Paris dressmakers. 

They are the truly great men of France, those famous 
dressmakers. Politicians, statesmen, generals, writers, 
musicians, strut across the public stage and play their 
roles; but Paris could do without them. Given a grand 
cataclysm, and a possibility of saving some one famous 
man for the Republic, Paris would unhesitatingly rescue 
Paquin. 



TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX 33 

There has been a revolution in the type of the illus- 
trious ones, during the last decade. Dressmaking has 
its Champs de Mars; but, in its case, the new men have 
almost driven the old salon to the v^all. 

Paris to-day has two distinct schools of great dress- 
makers, the new and the old, but the survivors of the 
old original type are few and far between. In the old 
days the phrase "creative genius" was not amiss when 
applied to the heads of the big French dressmaking 
establishments. To-day these great men are business 
men, but the men of the old school were artists, had 
creative talent — in a fashion sense — and cultivated 
that talent. 

Walles, an Englishman by birth, was an extreme 
example of this attitude on the part of the dressmaker 
toward his art, though his name is not so well known to 
the general public as many others. He was an artist 
enrage^ a genius in colour combination and line. He was 
an avid student of colour, line, values, in the art galleries; 
he spent day after day in the woods noting the colour 
combinations of the autumn leaves; he drew upon 
flower and bird and insect and cloud for inspiration, and 
he achieved great results; but he had the ill-balanced 
temperament of genius and his career was brief. 

Madame Roderigues, a Portuguese — and an excep- 
tion to the rule that no great dressmaking talent has 
come from Spain, Portugal, or Italy — was a phenomenal 
artist of this same type, but ill health interfered with 
her spectacular success. 

Other dressmakers, not such extremists as these two, 



34 IN VANITY FAIR 

ranked with the artist group, but Worth was practically 
the last of the old masters of dress. 

The new men are of a different class. The work 
turned out from their ateliers is as good as that of their 
predecessors, but it is produced by different methods. 
The head of the establishment to-day is, first of all, 
a business man of extraordinary ability. He is also a 
man of phenomenally good taste — but he is not a 
creative genius. He does not lie awake wrestling with 
embryonic ideas concerning sleeve or flounce or collar, 
he does not roam woods and fields in search of inspira- 
tion. Not he. He buys the brains of lesser folk and 
launches the product of those brains for the edification 
of womankind and his own glory. Some little ouvriere 
in the workroom has a moment of inspiration. She 
goes to her employer with her idea. If he likes it, he 
buys it, " — and she goes back to her work. Or perhaps 
some obscure dressmaker with more originality than 
reputation goes to one of the famous men and shows 
him models she has designed. If she has anything to 
offer which, in his judgment, has possibilities, he buys it 
— and at a generous figure. These men are always 
willing to pay liberally for ideas; but, once bought, the 
thing is theirs. The originator must not repeat it nor 
claim credit for it, though it may make the man who 
buys it famous, and set the fashionable world agog. 
Unfair ? Not at all. The little dressmaker has not the 
ability to launch her idea. She makes more out of it 
by selling it to a well-known house than she could make 
in any other way. In course of time she may become 



TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX 35 

the head of such an establishment, for the seats of the 
mighty are filled chiefly from her class; but, in the mean- 
time, she is glad to find a market for her ideas. 

The genius of the great dressmaker to-day consists in 
appreciation of the possibilities in an idea. He may not 
be able to conceive an original costume, but he knows 
instinctively what is good, has taste and judgment that 
are unerring. Out of a hundred models he will unhesi- 
tatingly choose the one that has a chance of success; 
and, having had the taste to select, he has the business 
ability to exploit and sell. 

Then too, the ultimate development of the chosen 
ideas does rest in his hands. The seller of sketches or 
of crinoline models has given him suggestions. It is 
for him to bring forth from those suggestions creations 
that will dictate to all the fashionable world. Robed in 
a loose cloak of silk that will protect his ordinary clothing, 
puffing a cigar that consorts ill with his classic toga, 
the master sits in his workroom amid a chaos of mate- 
rials and trimmings. Around him cluster his chief aids, 
exhibiting to him the experimental models turned out 
in the workroom. Jove-like, save for the great Havana 
tucked in a corner of his mouth, Monsieur lays down 
the law, criticises, suggests, alters, experiments. A fold 
is changed here, a frill is introduced there, materials are 
selected and harmonized, trimmings and linings are 
decided upon, names are given to the models at their 
birth. If the exact material or trimming needed to 
produce a desired eff*ect is lacking. Monsieur does not 
allow that to worry him. He will merely tell the manu- 



36 IN VANITY FAIR 

facturer to make what he wants — and the manufacturer 
will do it. The great dressmaker can make or mar a 
new fabric, and it is wise for the maker of dress materials 
to humour the whims of the tyrant. 

Under the regime of the old masters of fashion, the 
head of the establishment was a sacred personality — a 
being to be spoken of in hushed tones and approached 
with tremulous awe. He hedged himself about with 
mystery. He represented creative ^intellect at its highest; 
and, when the intellect settled down to its sacred func- 
tion, nothing short of battle, murder, or sudden death 
would present a satisfactory excuse for an intrusion upon 
the privacy of the Master. Only a few privileged ones, 
elect because of the size of their bills, their superlative 
appreciation of true art or the worthiness of their faces 
and figures, were admitted to the Presence, and they 
accepted the honour in a spirit of true humility. If an 
ordinary mortal, daring as Icarus, asked to see Monsieur 
himself. Monsieur's representatives were tolerant, but 
pitying. See Him! Impossible! So might the priests 
of old have regarded a Cook's tourist, asking to be per- 
sonally conducted through the Eleusinian Mysteries. 

But Paquin and his followers have changed all that. 
Ordering gowns is no longer an awesome function. It 
is a soothing, delightful experience. One loses in reli- 
gious exaltation but gains in beaming self-content. 

Paquin was perhaps the first, as he is the best known, 
of the new school. Thirteen or fourteen years ago he 
was a clerk on the Bourse with no more knowledge of 
costuming than was to be gained by appreciative obser- 



TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX 37 

vation of les belles Parisiennes, Madame Paquin, who 
was not yet Madame Paquin, had a Httle dressmaking 
shop in an insignificant quarter. The two met, married. 
A rich patron opportunely turned up and furnished 
capital for an ambitious dressmaking enterprise. The 
young couple opened a shop on the Rue de la Paix. 
There was no sounding of trumpets nor beating of 
drums, but with the opening of that little shop Paris 
was well on the way toward another revolution. 

To-day, Paquin stands at the head of the great dress- 
makers of Paris. His word is practically law. "Paqui- 
nesque" is the word coined to express all that there is 
of the most chic. 

"An ugly costume," says the first Parisienne. 

"But no, ma chere, it is of Paquin," protests the 



second. 

6( 



Oh, vraiment ? But yes, I see. It has fine points. 
Ah, mon Dieu, yes, it is charming," gushes the first 
critic. So much for being the king who can do no 
wrong. 

The success was, first and foremost, a success of 
personality. Monsieur Paquin is a handsome man. 
His manner is a thing to conjure with — and he has 
worked it to its conjuring limit. Madame Paquin is 
pretty, she is gifted, she is charming. Everyone is fond 
of Madame. From the first, this clever and ornamental 
young couple followed a new system. No haughty seclu- 
sion, no barred doors, at the Maison Paquin. Madame 
was probably met at the door by Monsieur Paquin him- 
self, and to be met by Paquin was a treat. The most 



38 IN VANITY FAIR 

beautiful of Parisian elegantes and the homeliest old 
dowager received the same flattering welcome, the same 
tender interest. There was no servility in the manner. 
It was merely the perfection of courtesy. The customer 
was enveloped in an atmosphere that was soothing, 
delicious, promotive of deep self-esteem. Madame 
Paquin continued the treatment. The charming woman, 
the handsome man, both so deeply interested, both so 
deferential, both so intelligent! This was a new experi- 
ence. The Parisienne smiled, purred, under the strok- 
ing, bought more than she had intended, — and came 
again. 

Vanity is a lever stronger than awe. Paquin and his 
pretty wife understood that fact and built upon it. 
Feminine Paris chanted **The King is dead; long live 
the King!" The revolution was accomplished. 

The sincerest flattery is imitation, and Paquin has 
been much flattered. A long line of more or less suc- 
cessful Adonises have followed in his footsteps. But 
Doeuillet and Francis are perhaps the most important 
on the list. 

Francis is young — in the early thirties. He is almost 
as good-looking as Paquin. His manners are a Parisian 
proverb and, personally, he is doubtless the most popular 
man in his class. His customers adore him. What is 
more surprising, his work people also adore him, and 
even the touchiest of mannequins, prone to decamp at a 
moment's notice, swears by Francis and refuses to leave 
or forsake him. Ten years ago Francis was a poor 
salesman. To-day he is rich. Tailor-made costumes, 



TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX 39 

or the Parisian modification of the tailor-made, are his 
speciahy, and his coats and cloaks are famous. Doeuil- 
let, too, has won fame and fortune within a few years. 
He, too, is young and handsome and ingratiating. Six 
feet tall, with the shoulders of an athlete and the face of 
a frank, honest boy, he, too, is a "Hon among ladies." 
Mention Doeuillet to a customer — she tells you of his 
eyes. "Such soft, honest eyes, ma chere. One would 
trust him anywhere, anywhere." The soft, honest eyes 
have been a valuable asset. Doeuillet has the most 
gorgeous dressmaking establishment of all that cluster 
around the Place Vendome. He caters to the ultra- 
extravagant, who do not care what they pay. His gowns 
are the elaborate ball gowns, the marvellous confections 
seen at Maxim's, at the races, at Monte Carlo. 

Ernest is another of the men of the new school; but 
Armand is, figuratively speaking, the baby of the group. 
On the first of September, four or five years ago, a 
wealthy patron put an unknown young employee of a 
silk house into the dressmaking business. The young 
man was Armand. He had a modest atelier on a side 
street. On March first he moved into the famous Saye 
Palace on the Place Vendome, the palace in which 
Napoleon and Eugenie met for the first time, and there, 
among the superb frescoes and splendid carvings, he 
installed his luxurious establishment. Success, wealth, 
in seven months! Verily, the dressmaking business has 
its opportunities for the young man who combines busi- 
ness ability and beaux yeux. 

Paquin's income is estimated at from three hundred 



40 IN VANITY FAIR 

thousand to four hundred thousand dollars a year. 
Doeuillet makes as much, and even without the Adonis 
characteristics, business talents may carry the Parisian 
dressmaker to wealth and fame. The list of rich dress- 
makers aside from "those delightful young men" is a 
long one. The Callot Soeurs are possibly the most 
expensive firm in Paris. Doucet needs no introduction 
to Americans. Neither does Beer, who is considered 
by many the greatest creative artist in dress of our day. 
He has one of the historic palaces on the Place Vendome, 
and his salons are rich in the eighteenth-century bibelots 
and furniture of which he is an enthusiastic collector. 
Flowers are everywhere throughout the rooms, and in 
the spring all of the many windows of the great palace 
are abloom with blossoms growing in window-boxes. 
Beer's mannequins, too, are vastly decorative, and this 
establishment is typical of the luxury and extravagance 
amid which the game of fashion-making is played. 

La Ferriere has the most exclusive English trade as 
well as Parisian vogue, and is Paris dressmaker, by royal 
warrant, to Queen Alexandra. Madame Havet, Blanche 
Lebouvier, Sara Meyer, Mademoiselle Corne, are famous 
and wealthy. RoufF belongs near the head of the list 
and is a lineal descendant of the old school. In his 
establishment many of the traditions of the great old 
men survive. M. Rouff is not always in evidence as 
are the meteoric young men. To have an interview with 
him is an honour, and he will refuse to see even the most 
illustrious if his whim prompts him to do so. The ordi- 
nary customer meets only his representatives. Perhaps, 




Doeuillet passes Judgment 



TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX 41 

during the interview, the curtains of the door will part. 
A thin, dark, rather wild-eyed face will appear for an 
instant and vanish. That is RouflF. 

Worth has a splendid trade^ but it is largely a serious 
one. The great English and French dowagers go there; 
and Jean Worth, the present active head of the house, 
wears, more or less comfortably, the halo of his illustri- 
ous grandfather. 

The dowager calls him a charming boy and says to 
him, "M'sieu Jean, when your famous grandpapa was 
alive, he made for me a light blue brocade that was most 
becoming. I would like something of that kind" — 
and M'sieu Jean repeats for age the light blue brocade 
of youth. He creates an extremely beautiful light blue 
brocade too, and he charges for it a price that would 
have surprised his famous grandpapa. He is old school 
by heredity, but he has modern commercial instincts, this 
charming boy. 

The prices of the average French frock have gone up 
under the new regime, though extravagant sums were 
always paid for particularly original creations. There is 
practically no limit to the expense of dress to-day, and 
spectacular prices are paid for spectacular costumes; but 
the price of the great bulk of the gowns sold by the 
famous makers ranges from one hundred and twenty-five 
dollars to five hundred dollars, with the greatest sales be- 
tween one hundred and seventy-five and three hundred. 
Certain firms refuse to make even the simplest frock for 
less than one hundred and fifty dollars, and turn out few 
costing less than five hundred. Small wonder that in 



42 IN VANITY FAIR 

Paris the great dressmaker is a personage, belonging to 
the swell clubs, in evidence ever)rwhere save in society's 
exclusive circles, ov^ning a superb country place up the 
Seine, a seashore home in Normandy, a villa on the Ri- 
viera, buying — as did one of the group this year — 
whole blocks of houses in the most expensive quarter of 
Paris, spending — as did another of the guild — twenty 
thousand dollars upon one day's entertainment of a few 
chosen friends, running handsome automobiles, driving 
and racing fine horses, and, from his vantage point, 
watching the flood of fashions which he has set flowing. 

Yet the expenses of a big dressmaking firm are large, 
as well as the profits. Few of the autocrats are them- 
selves practical dressmakers. They must hire work-folk 
capable of carrying out, in perfection, the ideas they 
wish to exploit, and expert cutters, fitters, sleeve hands, 
skirt hands, etc., command high wages. Exclusive ma- 
terial and trimmings are required in such an establish- 
ment; nothing is skimped, nothing is omitted that would 
add to the beauty of the frock and so sustain the reputa- 
tion of the house. Success, not economy, is the watch- 
word. A small army of employees is required in one 
of the great houses, and the place is a veritable beehive 
of systematized industry; but the patrons see only the 
''front," and of the wheels within wheels even of that 
smooth-running front, they have small idea. 

Each dressmaker has his loyal and devoted clientele, 
and it is upon this faithful band that he counts for his 
greatest profits, although the large floating trade, too, 
brings in immense returns. Some women famed for 



TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX 43 

their taste and extravagance in dress refuse to confine 
themselves to any one artist, claiming that each dress- 
maker has his specialty and that it is w^ise to go for each 
frock to the maker most successful in the creation of 
frocks of exactly the type desired. The idea seems rea- 
sonable, but there is much to be said against it. For the 
v^oman with whom Parisian frocks are an incidental and 
fluctuating supply, the system may work well enough, 
but the woman who season after season buys lavish 
outfits from French dressmakers will do well to put 
herself in the hands of some one of the great men, 
establish a thorough understanding with him, allow him 
to study her personality, her needs, her possibilities. It 
is in such study that the artist dressmaker proves his 
title clear to the name "artist," and to achieve artistic 
triumphs in dress it is not enough that one wears^ a 
beautiful gown, onennust wear a beautiful gown per- 
fectly adapted to one's individuality, a gown in which 
one is at one's best. There are some women who know 
instinctively their own requirements, but these women 
are few, and even they can carry out their ideas only 
through the sympathetic understanding of a dressmaker 
who is master of his art. The average woman must 
trust to the dressmaker for the desired results, and to do 
this confidently and with a surety of obtaining his best 
efforts, his most serious consideration, his most masterly 
comprehension, she must be among his tried and valued 
customers, must have given him opportunity to know her 
well, to understand perfectly her needs. 

All are fish who come to the dressmaker's net, and the 



44 IN VANITY FAIR 

woman who will pay the price may have the clothes; but 
the woman who can pay the price and display the clothes 
to the best advantage is the beloved of the Parisian 
artist in dress. One does one's best, of course, even 
with the woman of no figure and of homely face," says 
Monsieur, with a shrug of resignation, **but when a 
customer is slender, graceful, beautiful, and knows the 
art of wearing a frock — then it is a joy to clothe her, 
then one puts one's heart into the work, then one is 
inspired to flights. Ah, mon Dieu, yes, there are women 
for whom one would make clothes without pay, were it 
not necessary to divorce sentiment and business." 

Many American women are upon this list of ideal 
customers. In fact les Americaines divide the honours 
with the famous demi-mondaines of Paris. Do not 
shudder, Madame of the impeccable reputation. The 
comparison extends only to the province of clothes, and 
as we have said before, the great demi-mondaine of 
Paris is the best dressed woman in the world. One of 
the tyrants of the Place Vendome put the matter clearly 
in a recent interview: 

"Our best customers — best because they spend most 
freely and because they show our creations to the best 
advantage, are the famous demi-mondaines of Paris. 
You must not confuse the demi-mondaine with the 
grande cocotte. La grande cocotte is another thing. 
She dresses gorgeously, she spends money like water, 
when she has it, but she is seldom well dressed. She is 
merely spectacular. The perfection of extravagant sim- 
plicity, the apotheosis of artistic taste, — that is for the 



TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX 45 

great demi-mondaine. She makes no mistake. Her 
costumes do not jump at the eyes. They are perfection. 
C'est tout. There are French society leaders who dress 
as well, but they are few, and for that matter, the 
demi-mondaines belonging to the class of which I 
have been speaking are also few. One can count 
them on the fingers of the hands, those demi-mon- 
daines who really influence the fashions." 

"And the Americans?" queried the interviewer. 

" Oh, they are charming, les Americaines. We depend 
upon them. They cut more figure with us than any 
other dames et demoiselles convenables — respectable 
matrons and maids — on our books. Some are bizarre. 
Yes, of course. There are parvenues in America as 
elsewhere, more there, perhaps, because there are more 
quickly made fortunes in America. But many of the 
Americans have a genius for dress, and the money to 
indulge their tastes. They appreciate good clothes and 
wear them well. Me, I adore les Americaines." 

His ardour was heartfelt, as it might well be, for 
millions of dollars had been poured into his coffers by 
American customers. One of these women, whose fortune 
is American, though its possessor elects to live in Europe, 
orders, on an average, from one hundred to one hundred 
and fifty gowns a year, the prices running from one hun- 
dred and twenty-five dollars to two thousand dollars. 
Even the great man lowered his voice when he mentioned 
these figures. "Voila une cliente precieuse. Voila, 
certes, une cliente precieuse," he murmured reverently. 

From all over Europe, and from farther afield, women 



46 IN VANITY FAIR 

flock to the dressmakers of Paris. The Hungarian and 
Polish and Viennese women of fashion have a reputation 
for dress, and some of the Russians spend fabulous sums 
upon the Rue de la Paix. Many English women of 
fashion buy almost all of their frocks in Paris, and within 
the last few years the German trade has assumed un- 
precedented importance in the dressmaking establish- 
ments of Paris, but neither the English nor the 
Germans as a class have a talent for dress, and the 
English or German woman who attains the effect to 
which the French apply the comprehensive term "chic" 
is the exception rather than the rule. 



CHAPTER III 

THE FAMOUS ATELIERS 

The dressmaker of Paris is an artist. Granted that, 
it is quite natural that his workroom should be an 
ateHer. Your true artist works in a studio, not in a 
shop; and when one speaks of the famous ateliers of 
the Parisian dressmaking world, one but gives the work 
done in these establishments its due recognition. 

But they are "magasins" as well as ateliers, those 
establishments in which fashions are made, and business 
plays quite as important a part in them as does art, 
though even the business in some of its phases approxi- 
mates the dignity of a fine art. 

The saleswoman of the great dressmaking establish- 
ment is certainly an artist in her Hne, and perhaps it 
would not be speaking extravagantly to call her the 
shrewdest business woman in the world. She is the 
chief figure in that department of the establishment 
which meets the public eye and which is designated as 
the front. Upon her depends the successful disposal of 
the creations which are tediously evolved behind the 
closed doors, and her work calls for no ordinary ability. 
Her knowledge of things Parisian is equalled only by 
her knowledge of human nature, her suavity is equalled 

47 



48 IN VANITY FAIR 

only by her diplomacy. Her siren song would make 
the mermaiden's melodies sound like a hurdy-gurdy. 
She could sell a ten-thousand-dollar sable coat to the 
savage owner of a hut on the equator — provided she 
knew that the savage would be good for the ten thousand 
dollars. And she would know. That's the amazing 
thing about her. She always does know, or if she doesn't, 
she finds out by some lightning quick process painless to 
the customer. She makes no mistakes, this soft-voiced, 
smiling, carefully groomed, persuasive woman, and yet 
there is such opportunity for mistake in Paris. It is not 
only a question of knowing the financial rating of the 
husband of Madame A, or of the Countess B. The 
credit system of a Parisian dressmaking house is a more 
complicated thing than that. When Mademoiselle 
Blanche of the Scala, at fifty francs a week, drives up in 
a luxurious carriage, with coachman, footman, maid, 
and poodle all in attendance, sweeps into the show rooms 
and begins talking of five-thousand-franc gowns, the 
saleswoman shows no surprise. She only wonders and 
then adroitly institutes a search for the explanation. 
The chances are that she can get the story from Blanche 
herself, by dint of diplomatic wheedling and flattery. 
If not — well, there are other ways of finding out before 
the material is cut. 

And when everyone knows that the Grand Duke has 
loved and ridden away from Antoinette of the Folies 
Bergere, yet Antoinette turns up smiling and places ex- 
travagant orders, one must not be too hasty. A 
grand duke may be succeeded by a rich banker. Even 



THE FAMOUS ATELIERS 49 

if there is no visible guarantee of the bills, the little 
woman should not be angered. The future may hold 
other grand dukes. 

Not highly moral, these calculations, but supremely 
Parisian. Business is business, and Parisian business 
is adapted to Parisian conditions. The dressmaker does 
not concern himself about the source from which the 
money floods his tills, so long as the money is forth- 
coming, and tainted money scruples would sadly demor- 
alize the business prosperity of the Rue de la Paix. 

There are black books in the great dressmaking estab- 
lishments and queer things are entered in them, items of 
information that would furnish spicy running commen- 
tary upon Parisian life. The incomes of Monsieur's 
customers are so often fluctuating things. Even in the 
beau monde there may be circumstances not generally 
understood, and, where no touch of scandal enters into 
the calculations, still there is room for mistake. Fortunes 
may rest on tottering foundations, appearances are often 
misleading. Yes, there is much to confide to the black 
book, and the dressmakers interchange statistics in 
right comradelike fashion. There are men employed 
whose business it is to investigate all matters having a 
bearing upon the financial condition of the women who 
make up the clienteles of the famous dressmakers, and 
it might surprise some of the gay butterflies that flutter 
into the luxurious salons of the dressmaking establish- 
ments to know how thoroughly informed concerning 
their private aff*airs are the saleswomen who wait upon 
them and the ** master" who caters to their whims. 



50 IN VANITY FAIR 

The saleswoman is as clever in dealing with Miss 
Millions from Chicago as with the irrepressible Toinette. 
She flatters so subtly, influences so insensibly, makes 
herself so indispensable. Madame must never be made 
to feel that her own taste is bad, but she must, if possible, 
be guided to wise selection, persuaded to believe that 
she herself has decided upon the frock she finally chooses. 
It is to the interest of the house that every woman who 
buys her frocks there should look her best. Moreover, 
the woman whose friends praise her clothes will hold 
fast to her dressmaker, so the saleswoman does her best, 
and unless the customer is very obstinate, that best is 
surprisingly good. If necessary, with an old and valued 
customer the diplomat can be firm, suavely, politely firm. 

"Why have I no black gown on the list?" asks 
Madame, after studying the plan of her season's outfit 
as made out by Mademoiselle Therese. 

Mademoiselle smiles, a deprecatory little smile, but 
her reply is prompt. 

"We find that this year Madame is not of an age to 
wear black," she says simply, sweetly, but with a finality 
in her tones. 

Madame colours, looks resentful. Mademoiselle busies 
herself with orders to a mannequin. The pause is 
ended by a sigh of resignation. 

"Oui, c'est vrai," admits Madame. "There is an 
age, and there is again an age, but in between — eh, 
bien, it is true. We must now be careful, Therese." 

The successful saleswoman gains the confidence of 
her customers, holds them, brings milHons of francs* 



THE FAMOUS ATELIERS 51 

worth of business to her employer, and receives a com- 
mission on all sales. One saleswoman, among the best 
in her class, makes as much as fifteen thousand dollars a 
year out of her commissions, and, though this is excep- 
tional, all earn good incomes. 

The mannequins or models are the secondary features 
of the "front"; but they are of little importance com- 
pared with the saleswomen; and while it is a difficult 
thing to replace a good saleswoman, satisfactory manne- 
quins may be had for the asking. 

They are usually recruited from the ranks of the 
errand girls who swarm in all of the large dressmaking 
establishments, and are a sharp-witted, precocious set of 
gamins wise in the gossip of the atelier which is the gossip 
of all Paris. One of these girls grows up into a good- 
looking young woman with an admirable figure, a forty- 
four-inch skirt length, a twenty-one-inch waist, and a 
soaring ambition. She attracts the attention of the 
powers that be and is transplanted from her inconspic- 
uous place behind the scenes to the full glare of the 
front. No more trotting about in pursuit of elusive 
colours and materials, no more delivering messages and 
frocks at all hours and in all weathers, no more being a 
shabby little atom of humanity at everyone's beck and 
call. Henceforward it is her sole duty to be chic, to 
wear with an air that will lend cachet to the creations 
any frocks or wraps which the saleswoman wishes to 
show. 

Much of the talk concerning the transcendent charms 
of the Paris mannequins is great nonsense, and the 



52 IN VANITY FAIR 

sensational tales of these humble beauties and their 
spectacular marriages — or ''arrangements/' are, as a 
rule, pure fabrication. There are handsome girls among 
them, and one and all they have the French talent for 
wearing smart clothes; but their good looks are largely 
a matter of make-up and of those same smart clothes. 
A more ordinary looking group of girls than the manne- 
quins of a house, when they arrive in the morning, it 
would be hard to find, but a half hour in a toilet room 
works a transformation, and when Mademoiselle, per- 
fectly corsetted, skilfully made up as to complexion, 
eyes, and brows, with her hair dressed in the latest 
fashion, her hands and nails beautifully cared for, her 
feet clad in dainty high-heeled slippers, sweeps across 
the show room wearing a frock that is a dream of 
beauty — then one understands how the traditions con- 
cerning her have arisen. She is not beautiful perhaps, 
but one forgets it, for she is excessively chic, and being 
that she fulfils the French law and gospel. 

A few mannequins have developed into saleswomen, 
a few have married well, a few have become notorious 
cocottes; one became a favourite attendant of Queen 
Victoria, and finally drifted over to New York to end 
her days there. A number have found unimportant 
places upon the French stage, but, in the main, the 
mannequins are very ordinary young women whose his- 
tory is but the history of the average Parisian working 
girl. Perhaps it is demoralizing, this constant masquer- 
ading in costly finery meant for others. One cultivates 
a taste for luxury under such conditions, and when six 



THE FAMOUS ATELIERS 53 

o'clock comes the role of grub must seem hard to the 
girl who has been the most gorgeous of butterflies all 
through the day. One works hard and lives shabbily 
and is virtuous — but among the customers for whom 
one trails silken draperies up and down, up and down, 
there are so many who have the fine clothes for their 
own, who live luxuriously, gaily, and who do not trouble 
about that tiresome virtue. Bernard Shaw is right. It 
is ill paid in a worldly sense, the virtue, and if the man- 
nequin has that fact forced upon her by the show that 
passes before her — well, it is but one of the lessons of 
Vanity Fair. As we have said before, French frocks 
will have much to answer for when accounts are summed 

up- 

The mannequins' ball gives to the mannequin at least 

one opportunity during the year for playing her role of 
elegante outside the establishment in w^hich she is em- 
ployed. For the truly great houses there is little object 
in furnishing costumes for this ball, save only the giving 
of pleasure to favourite employees, but gorgeous confec- 
tions are provided for the occasion, and the spirit of 
rivalry twixt the different ateliers runs high. 

Sometimes, too, pretty mannequins are commissioned 
to wear model frocks at the great racing events or on 
other occasions when all the fashionable Parisian world 
turns out to see and be seen; but as a general thing, 
Mademoiselle's sphere of usefulness is Hmited to the 
salons of the firm that employs her. The days are not 
so dull even there. All sorts and conditions of women, 
save only the women without money, pass in and out. 



54 IN VANITY FAIR 

One sees the famous beauties, the most notorious demi- 
mondaines, the most celebrated artistes, the princesses 
and grand duchesses and queens, the wives of the rich 
bankers and manufacturers^ the heroine of the latest 
scandal, the newest love of a crown prince, the American 
of fabulous millions, — the mannequin knows them all, 
so does the saleswoman, so does the page who opens the 
door, and the procession is an amusing one for onlookers 
who have the key to its humours. Ah, the very walls are 
saturated with gossip in the salons where Fashion makes 
her headquarters, and when an old customer disappears, 
when a new luminary arises, even the curtains flutter 
with interest and conjecture. 

Stars of a certain type rise and set swiftly in Paris. 
Of a sudden, there is a new sensation. Some woman by 
force of beauty, wit, diablerie, sheer audacity, has caught 
the public eye. All Paris talks of her, men pour fortunes 
into her grasping little hands. She eats and drinks and 
is exceedingly merry. Her jewels are a proverb, her 
costumes beggar description, her sables would do credit 
to an empress. She has her handsome house, her horses, 
her carriages, her servants. Wherever she goes she is the 
cynosure of all eyes, and then — Pouf ! she is with the 
snows of yesteryear. Paris has a new sensation. La 
belle Margot f Oh, yes; she had un succes fou, but that 
was yesterday. 

"Where is Felise.f^" asked an American who had not 
been in Paris since the season two years earlier, when 
Felise was the lionne of the day. The Frenchman to 
whom he spoke shrugged his shoulders. 



THE FAMOUS ATELIERS 55 

"Ah, mon ami, how can one tell ? — picking rags for 
aught I know, — but have you seen Suzanne ? Ravis- 
sante, mon cher! Paris is at her feet." 

They are good customers of the dressmaker when they 
are on the crest of the wave — these creatures of a day, 
whom the French misname "filles de joie." When their 
day is over and their credit is gone there is an entry in 
the black book. The familiar carriage appears no more 
at the door — but there are other carriages, other cus- 
tomers to take the vacant place. The performance is a 
continuous one in Vanity Fair. 

There are fine distinctions made in regard to the 
customers who flock to the famous dressmaking estab- 
lishments. Not for everyone are the choicest models 
brought to light. These are for the delectation of the 
elect, for known and cherished customers, for others 
whose custom is a thing greatly to be desired. 

Not until she is sure that the visitor is worthy of the 
lure does the saleswoman order the mannequin to show 
these exclusive models. She is eternally vigilant and 
can recognize a dressmaker in search of ideas rather 
than of frocks, or a woman moved by curiosity rather 
than by a desire to buy, as far as she can see her. There 
are many such visitors and they are treated civilly, but 
they see little for their pains and they are not encouraged 
to linger. 

Then there is the woman of one frock, the casual 
tourist who is seeing the sights of Paris and feels that 
she will not have completed her programme satisfactorily 
unless she takes at least one French frock home with 



56 IN VANITY FAIR 

her. She is not received with effusion, rather with a 
good-natured tolerance, yet the saleswoman's manner 
toward her is far warmer than that accorded to the 
visitor with no intention of buying. In the course of the 
year, these small orders, a vast majority of which are 
placed by Aniericans, foot up to an imposing sum total, 
and the saleswoman is too shrewd a business woman to 
underestimate the importance of small things. 

What does Madame want .? An evening gown, a 
dinner gown, a visiting gown, a street frock ? Madame, 
somewhat embarrassed, thinks she would like a nice all- 
around dress, something dressy, but not too dressy, a 
dress to wear to luncheon or afternoon tea or theatre 
or — 

" Parfaitement, — a gown utile. Marie, the grey 
crepe; Elise, put on the black and white silk. 

" Too youthful ? But no, Madame. It is of a sobriety 
that grey crepe. Madame is even too young for so 
serious a costume, but — since she does not wish any- 
thing conspicuous — The grey suits Madame's com- 
plexion and figure to perfection. It will serve for 
occasions of all kinds, and it is chic, tres chic. The 
friends of Madame will recognize at once that it is of 
Paris. The sleeve is all that there is of the latest, and 
the skirt — Madame will observe how the skirt hangs. 
It is our newest skirt. Madame will be satisfied — oh, 
of a surety.'* 

And Madame buys the frock or orders one made like 
the model. She has been shown little else, but then the 
saleswoman is clever enough to have brought out at the 



THE FAMOUS ATELIERS 57 

start something that would actually be suitable and 
becoming, so, though overawed and robbed of self- 
assertion, the unimportant customer probably fares 
better than if she had been shown many models and 
left to her own devices. 

Then, of a sudden, there is a stir in the entry, the door 
opens, a woman elegantly gowned, aristocratic of air, 
sweeps into the salon. The saleswoman's face is 
wreathed in smiles of welcome, her air is eager, defer- 
ential. Madame la Princesse wishes to see Monsieur? 
But, certainly. He shall be called. In the meantime, 
if there is anything one can show ? 

Mannequins are sent flying for the best models and a 
long file of the young women promenades through the 
room wearing frocks in which the illustrious customer 
may be interested. Monsieur comes out from the inner 
fastnesses and declares himself enchanted, honoured; 
materials are brought out and displayed, trimmings are 
suggested. The interview is a very serious one. No 
smallest word of the Princess is treated lightly. A 
beggarly dozen of frocks, all extravagant in price, are 
planned. A few costly furs are thrown in for good 
measure. The Princess rises languidly. Monsieur him- 
self accompanies her to the door, and in the hall she 
passes La Petite Fleurette, who has danced herself into 
notoriety and into the heart of the Prince whose name 
and title Madame la Princesse bears. Evidently this is 
to be an expensive day for his Royal Highness. 

Fleurette, too, is received with smiles, with effusive 
greetings. The credit of his Royal Highness is excellent. 



58 IN VANITY FAIR 

Monsieur stops on his way to his private rooms and 
returns to greet the danseuse. His manner to her is 
not what it was to the Princess. Quite as cordial, yes; 
but more familiar. The grave deference has disap- 
peared. The saleswoman, too, is familiar. She calls 
the customer "ma chere" and "ma petite," flatters her 
openly, jests with her. The best in the cases is brought 
out for Fleurette as for the Princess, but it is a best of 
a more striking type, and the master artist's suggestions 
are not those he made to the Princess. One is always 
an artist, but one caters to the individual. Where 
Madame la Princesse has ordered a dozen gowns, la 
petite Fleurette orders a score, and when she goes Mon- 
sieur accompanies her also to the door, but as he turns 
he shrugs his shoulders. 

"Oh la, la!" says the saleswoman, vulgarly, express- 
ively, as she meets his eyes, and a buzz of conversation 
sounds from the corner where the mannequins are 
gathered. 

The popular danseuse, chanteuse, diseuse, of the 
Fleurette type is usually a more profitable customer in 
her private capacity than is the great actress. She is 
the fad, the sensation of the moment, and her money 
comes easily and plentifully. No ambitious productions, 
no expensive theatrical experiments, eat up her income. 
Her art is not of the kind that absorbs her thoughts and 
hopes and dreams. It is a means to an end, and that 
end is gay and luxurious living. So la petite Fleurette 
spends her money prodigally in self-indulgence, and 
much of it goes to swell the profits of those alluring 



THE FAMOUS ATELIERS 59 

establishments on the Rue de la Paix and the Place 
Vendome. Other chanteuses and discuses there are in 
Paris who take their art as seriously as Bernhardt takes 
hers, and who make it, in its own way, as truly an art; 
but here again one finds women too deeply interested in 
their work to take an absorbing interest in chiffons. 
They may dress well, but not extravagantly well; and 
beside the splendours of Fleurette their mild sartorial 
radiance will seem dim indeed. 

Of the actresses who stand at the head of their pro- 
fession in Paris, Rejane is probably the best dressed, 
spends the most money for her personal and unofficial 
adornment. She loves pretty frocks and she wears them 
well, off the stage as on it; but even she does not rival 
in her toilettes certain lesser lights of the stage, for whom, 
in her capacity as artiste, she may well feel a good- 
natured contempt. 

It is when the famous actress appears in a new play 
that she becomes important in the dressmaking world. 
Then, if you please, she is extravagant, exacting, full of 
whims. Then she and her chosen dressmaker have 
long and strenuous conferences, at which the most able 
assistants of the master artist are present with suggestion 
and advice. The play must be gravely, exhaustively 
considered. If it deals with some historic period, the 
fashions of that period must be studied down to their 
merest detail and adapted to present needs. The phys- 
ical characteristics of the actress must have due atten- 
tion. She must be made to look her best, — but the 
psychological subtleties of her role must also be taken 



6o IN VANITY FAIR 

into account in the planning of her costumes. Oh 
they are grave, very grave, the preHminary consulta- 
tions concerning the costumes for a new and important 
role. Day after day, Rejane drives up to the door, 
behind her white mules, and is closeted with the 
master and his chosen aids. There are sketches, 
crinoline models, materials to be viewed and discussed, 
high converse to be held concerning points upon which 
artiste and artist are not at one. Then come fittings 
by the dozen, with Monsieur looking on, and the heads 
of the departments called in to receive orders or sug- 
gest improvements. The skirt drapery does not fall 
as it should. Madame shakes her head. Monsieur 
knits his brows. 

*'Ask Renoir to come here." The chief skirt hand 
appears. 

**Tu vois, Renoir, 9a ne va pas. It is a horror, that 
drapery. I have the air of a femme des Halles, n'est-ce 
pas?" 

Renoir goes down upon her knees, rips a stitch here 
and there, gathers the material up in her quick fingers. 
A touch, a fold, a lifting here, a dropping there, while 
everyone watches anxiously. 

The skirt takes on new lines, Madame looks over her 
shoulder at her reflection in the mirror, and her frown 
melts into a smile. 

"Mais oui, c'est 9a." 

Monsieur smooths his furrowed brow, and the skirt- 
maker endeavours to look modest as she hurries back 
to the workroom, but she is proud, extremely proud. 



THE FAMOUS ATELIERS 6i 

It is something to surmount serious difficulties under the 
eye of the master. 

There is perhaps a miniature stage in one of the 
fitting-rooms, — a tiny stage, but large enough for a 
solitary figure in sweeping draperies, and lighted by 
footlights as is a real stage. So much depends upon 
those footlights. They may ruin totally the effect of a 
frock lovely under ordinary light, just as they will make 
the most perfect natural complexion look cadaverous, 
and the stage costume must be planned with reference 
to this problem of lighting. 

Many dressmakers care little for the theatrical custom 
and seldom make stage costumes save when a modern 
society play is in question, but other houses cater largely 
to the stage trade. Doucet makes more of the costumes 
worn on the Parisian stage than any other one maker, 
but Redfern has had great success in that line, and 
Drecoll, too, has costumed some famous roles, while, 
when it comes to the modern society play, actresses turn 
to any one of the autocrats who finds most favour with 
them. 

The premiere of an important production always 
brings out, if not the great dressmakers themselves, at 
least their official representatives, whose task it is to 
garner fashion ideas wherever they are to be found. 
Even a period play may furnish some idea in colour, 
line, or detail that may be adapted to modern dress and 
inspire a new mode, and the elaborately costumed 
modern play is always interesting to students of the 
modes. Sometimes an actress wears a new and original 



62 IN VANITY FAIR 

frock that catches the fancy of Parisiennes and launches 
a mode, but, in general, the stage frock's influence is 
limited to the inspiring of ideas for modes rather than 
to the setting of fashions, and the stage trade is not of 
great importance in the great game of fashion-making. 

Professional buyers fill the salons at certain seasons 
of the year, and are to be reckoned with seriously in the 
business calculations of Monsieur. 

In early spring and late summer dressmakers and 
buyers from all parts of the world set their faces toward 
Paris, but by far the largest element of the .pilgrimage 
is American. Every dressmaker of pretensions to-day 
makes her trips to Paris at least twice a year, views the 
advance season models, buys as many of them as she 
can, lays in a supply of exclusive materials and trimmings, 
and fills her note-book with ideas to be used for the 
benefit of her home customers. Often during her sum- 
mer trip she takes a run to Trouville and to other 
Normandy resorts where the tide of fashion is at its 
highest as the summer draws to a close; and, in the late 
winter or early spring, the Riviera is a famous hunting- 
ground for fashions. 

Before March brings the Auteuil races, Paris is, in the 
eyes of the ultra-chic, a wilderness. Women charmingly 
gowned may be there. The uninitiated may believe that 
the latest creations of the French dressmakers' art are on 
view. The elect know better. They understand that 
the gowns being worn in Paris before March are the 
gowns of yesteryear. They understand, too, that, all 
through the Paris winter, spring modes are having their 



THE FAMOUS ATELIERS 63 

trial, but that this trial is going on in far-away summer 
lands. The women who launch the modes, the exclusive 
few who set the fashion, are already wearing toilettes 
that will serve as models to the general public when 
spring comes, but they are wearing them at the winter 
resorts, each of which has its distinct season for the 
European smart set, and it is not until Auteuil calls 
fashionable folk back to Paris that the stay-at-homes 
know what is upon Fashion's spring programme. 



CHAPTER IV 

FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF 

For fashionable Paris, the season begins with Auteuil. 
The first of the races calls all of the wanderers back to 
the heart of Vanity Fair. It is the famous rally, the 
great spring opening, the first important toilette display 
of the season. The meeting is held as soon as winter 
shows the smallest sign of relenting, and is never later 
than March, sometimes as early as February; but when- 
ever it comes it marks the debut of spring upon the 
Parisian calendar. 

The weather may be bitterly cold, but that makes no 
difference to the Parisienne. She has prepared a cos- 
tume for Auteuil and she wears it. 

"Elise, what is the weather?" 

**But of a coldness, Madame. It is to freeze!" 

"Eh bien, bring me my fur coat." 

Change the frock ? The idea doesn't even occur to 
her. That is her Auteuil frock. 

And so Auteuil usually offers a spectacle as picturesque 
as it is incongruous. The day is bright and cold, or — 
more probable supposition — the sky is lowering, and 
there is a flurry of snow in the air. The grand stand 
and pesage are not yet gay with blossoming plants. 

64 



FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF 65 

Tall braziers are set at intervals along the front of the 
stand, and near them hover swarms of women drawing 
sable coats together over frocks of chiffon and lace, 
showing faces a trifle blue with cold beneath flower- 
laden hats. They hold their chilled hands out to the 
flames, these forced blossoms of spring, and they shiver 
daintily and jest at their own discomfort and are alto- 
gether gay and inconsequent and absurd. Here and 
there the furs are thrown back to aff*ord a deserving 
public glimpses of a toilette well worth seeing; and it is 
around the braziers that all Paris first gains an idea of 
the fashions that are to dominate spring and summer. 

Feminine Paris appreciates and improves the oppor- 
tunity. Nowhere in the world do races draw so large, 
so mixed, and so enthusiastic a crowd of women as do 
the races in "Parisi" — which, slangily speaking, implies 
the district round about Paris, and takes in all of the 
famous courses upon which the spring races are run, — 
Auteuil, Longchamps, St. Cloud, St. Ouen, Massons, 
Lafitte, and Chantilly. 

It is a queer mixture, that feminine crowd. The 
Royalist Duchess, Fifi of the Varietes, the rich banker's 
wife, the stable boy's sweetheart, the famous actress, the 
little milliner, the tourist, the great manufacturers' 
women folk, — all are there, dressed in their best, gay, 
excited, conferring with jockeys and touts and illustri- 
ous members of the Jockey Club, quite impartially, in 
their quest for tips, betting eagerly, coquetting still more 
eagerly, showing their own frocks and studying those of 
their neighbours. 



66 IN VANITY FAIR 

Verily, on the turf and under the turf all women as 
well as all men are equal, but nowhere is the melange 
more amazing than at the Paris race courses. "A 
feminine pousse cafe melting into a cocktail," commented 
one irreverent and thirsty American as he watched the 
throng at the Grand Prix last year, and the description 
was apt if inelegant. Fifi and the Duchess come nearer 
meeting on equal terms in the pesage than they do in 
any other one place. They are beautiful women in 
beautiful gowns, vying with each other for the appro- 
bation of the crowd. The Duchess would not admit 
that, but the fact remains, and it is a fact, too, that the 
honours frequently rest with Fifi. 

During the last few years there has been a tentative 
effort in the smart Parisian set toward simplicity of 
dress for the races. The demi-mondaines having chosen 
these occasions for reckless extravagance in dress, the 
social elect said, " Let us mark a distinction by disdaining 
rivalry in chiffons. Let us be chic, but with a difference, 
with a severity." 

The movement has perhaps had some slight effect; 
but, on the whole, the cause is a lost one. It demands 
abnegation of too strenuous a type. Madame may 
sacrifice much to a principle, but not an opportunity of 
displaying her most charming costumes where their 
merits will find wide and enthusiastic recognition; and 
the racing events are the ideal opportunities for such 
display. 

The setting is in itself a delectable one, for all of the 
courses near Paris are attractive. The grand-stands are 



FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF 67 

all ablaze with flowers. Women trail their gowns over 
velvety turf and under shadowing boughs, or stroll along 
wide promenades between high banks of blossoming 
shrubs. Given sunshine and warm weather, a great day 
at any one of the courses is a surpassingly gay sight, all 
colour and motion and sparkle. 

The grande Militaire, a steeplechase with gentlemen 
riders up, is one of the most popular of the Auteuil 
events, for the horses are ridden by officers from the 
neighbouring garrisons, and both Fifi and the Duchess 
" aiment le Militaire." The Day of the Drags, or coach- 
ing parade, is another chic event, and the occasion for a 
phenomenal toilette exhibit. One is so delightfully in 
evidence upon the box seat of a coach that one's most 
charming frock and hat will not be wasted there. More- 
over, the competition in dress is more limited than it is 
in the pesage or the Tribune, and, naturally, is all the 
keener for the concentration. Seats upon the coaches, 
which are tooled out to the race track by their famous 
owners and greeted with traditional and impressive 
ceremony, are eagerly coveted, and many a mode has 
been launched from the top of a coach, many a new 
belle has entered into her kingdom behind four curvet- 
ting horses on the Day of the Drags. 

But the day of days for the Parisienne who follows the 
races — and what true Parisienne does not ? — is the 
day of the Grand Prix. The Grand Prix is the dramatic 
conclusion of the season to which Auteuil was the tri- 
umphal introduction. It is the climax to which St. 
Cloud and St. Ouen and Chantilly and the rest have led. 



68 IN VANITY FAIR 

Auteuil is likely to be stormy. One expects that, but 
bad weather for the Grand Prix is a tragedy. For 
weeks, dressmakers and milliners have been at work 
upon Grand Prix toilettes, and certain women, 
famed for their beauty and the inimitable grace with 
which they wear their clothes, might have the choicest 
products of the ultra-swell ateliers merely for the wear- 
ing at the Grand Prix, did they but choose to accept 
the favours and organize themselves into advertising 
agencies. Every woman with money to spend, spends 
as much of it as she can spare upon her toilette for this 
one occasion. She will blossom out gorgeously for 
Grand Prix, if she goes shabby during the rest of the 
year. 

Oh the heartburnings, the jealousies, the opera bouffe 
dramas that are woven round those Grand Prix gowns, 
— the solemn conferences with the great dressmakers, 
the whispers and rumours about the frocks of rival 
beauties, the eager interest of all the Parisian world! 
In the ateliers nothing is talked of save the coming 
event. From the smallest errand girl to the master 
artist, all have the interests of the establishment at 
heart and are curious regarding the achievements in 
other workrooms. To have turned out a majority of 
the frocks which create a sensation at the Grand Prix, — 
that is a triumph surpassed only by the winning of the 
Grand Prix itself. 

So the dressmakers outdo themselves in aspiration 
and effort, and when the great day comes they go to 
Longchamps to sit in judgment upon their own creations 



FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF 69 

and those of their rivals. They bet upon the horses, 
yes; but they reaHze that the race is run in the Tribune 
and the pesage, not upon the track, and as for the two- 
hundred-thousand-franc purse that goes to the owner of 
the winning horse — two hundred thousand francs would 
carry Madame but a little way on her race for fashionable 
prominence. Ten thousand dollars' worth of lace went 
into one frock worn at the Grand Prix last June and the 
ropes of pearls worn over the lace were worth a prince's 
ransom, yet the toilette was a quiet one. Only the 
initiated could appraise its value — but, fortunately for 
the wearer, in the matter of clothes, Paris is a city of 
initiates. 

There are strenuous times in the boudoirs of Paris on 
the morning of the Grand Prix. Both Fifi and the 
Duchess are hard to satisfy, and their maids walk on 
tiptoe and breathe but lightly until the last rebellious 
lock is brought into subjection, the last sustaining pin is 
thrust through the tip-tilted hat, the last touch of powder 
is applied to the pretty nose, the last fold of the veil is 
coquettishly adjusted. 

Madame surveys herself conscientiously, exhaustively. 
Not a detail escapes her, and, if all is well, she sighs, — 
a sigh of supreme content. She has done what she 
could. Dressmaker, milliner, and maid have done 
what they could. Le bon Dieu also has had a share in 
the satisfactory tout ensemble. Mentally, Madame in- 
cludes all in a sweeping vote of thanks, but the maid is 
nearest at hand. 

"Celeste, you may have the blue silk frock you like — 



70 IN VANITY FAIR 

the one with the embroidery. Yes; and the blue parasol 
also." 

She is gone, in a flutter of laces and chiffon and plumes, 
and the exhausted maid stops only long enough to 
appropriate the blue silk, before hurrying out to the 
Bois where she may see the passing show, or joining 
Jacques and setting forth — she also — for Long- 
champs. 

The parade to the Grand Prix is well worth seeing, 
even if one cannot see the race itself. Out the broad 
avenue of the Champs Elysees streams the procession, 
coaches, automobiles, smart traps of all kinds, hired 
fiacres, high-stepping horses, dapper drivers, exquisitely 
gowned women, merry-makers of all types. 

Past the Place de I'Etoile they go, where the avenues, 
radiating in all directions, pour tributary streams of 
humanity into the already swollen tide. Out along the 
Avenue du Bois and through the gates, past Armenon- 
ville, past the cascades, on to Longchamps! 

There is the smooth green stretch, there is the pesage 
already crowded with fashionable men and women, 
jockeys, sports, gee-gees (as the French bookies are 
called). There is the Tribune, closely packed and 
glowing like a Dutch tulip-garden with colour. Groups 
of women, arrayed with a subtlety of elegance of which 
Sheba's queen never dreamed, are clustered under the 
lindens, everywhere flutter the colours of the various 
starters, — which are the colours of the great families of 
France; for the Grand Prix is run under the auspices of 
the Jockey Club of France, and the Jockey Club, as has 



FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF 71 

been said before, is the gentlemen's racing club par 
excellence. 

Perhaps it is because the horses belong, as it were, in 
her own set, perhaps because she and her world follow 
the racing season so closely, that the average French- 
woman of society knows more about the horses than her 
American or English sister, and places her bets right 
cannily; but the Parisienne at large is quite as eager 
over racing, and puts up her money with quite as much 
zest as does my lady of legitimate Jockey Club connec- 
tions. She is a born gambler, the little Parisienne, born 
to gambling as to all forms of excitement, to all that is 
recklessly, feverishly, uncalculatingly gay; and she bets 
upon the Grand Prix, if not again through the year. 
She may wager louis or francs, but she places her stake 
with smiling audacity, and takes her losses or gains 
sportily. 

Each year, after Grand Prix, the air of Paris is full of 
stories of feminine plunging, and many of the stories 
would make spicy reading could they be told with the 
names attached. 

There, for instance, was the American actress who lost 
the ten thousand dollars borrowed for her new produc- 
tion, and could not get her ordered gowns out of the 
hands of her dressmaker until she had made a flying trip 
to New York and succeeded in raising money enough to 
pay for them. 

There was the French danseuse who, through a jealous 
rival, obtained a tip that was pure fabrication, but pur- 
ported to be a sure thing emanating from a distinguished 



72 IN VANITY FAIR 

source. She did what she was expected to do, staked 
every franc she could get together upon a horse quite 
out of the running, and was the only one not surprised 
when she found herself one of the handful who had 
backed a winner, and provided with money to throw to 
the birds. And there was the story of the little Countess 
of high degree who pawned the family diamonds for 
money to risk on a sure tip from a famous jockey, and 
who came a cropper that was offset only by the spec- 
tacular winnings of her husband's bonne amie on the 
same race. 

Yes, the air is full of such stories and the scandal- 
mongers whisper them, chuckling; but they are hardly 
pleasant stories, and sometimes tragedy looms grim in 
the aftermath of the Grand Prix. For that matter, 
tragedy lurks always just beneath the surface of Parisian 
life, but on the surface there is such gaiety, such insou- 
ciance, such a glitter and a fanfare, that one forgets. It 
is absurd to be haunted in Paris. The ghosts are them- 
selves Parisian; and, recognizing the absurdity of their 
metier, allow themselves to be decently laid while the 
tide of life swirls over them and around them. Or, if 
they do walk between the hydrangea clumps of Auteuil, 
or under the lindens of Longchamps, or steal through 
the corridors of the Grand Conde at Chantilly, they are 
well-behaved, unobtrusive ghosts, unnoticed in the whirl 
of brilliant colourful life. 

Down in the pesage at Longchamps there is no ques- 
tion of ghosts on Grand Prix day. Sunshine, laughter, 
life at its merriest, rule the day. The Parisienne's 



FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF 73 

grand passion is for diverting herself and others. She 
is the queen of luxury and of gaiety, and she plays her 
role royally at the Grand Prix. *^Parisienne, " one says, 
but one means the woman of Paris, not the woman born 
in Paris; for Paris is cosmopolis. The over-elaboration 
of all civilization centres there. Her women are the 
women from all lands, women of all types, resembling 
each other only in sex and in their ready assimilation of 
the best that civilization has to offer to the senses. The 
spell of Paris, the witch city, is over them all. 

In the paddock at Longchamps, one will see all the 
well-known women of Paris, and not only of Paris but of 
Europe. Homburg empties its cosmopolitan smart set 
into Paris for the Grand Prix, St. Petersburg always 
sends a large contingent, the racing folk of England are 
out in full force, Americans are numerous; but perhaps 
most notable of all are the Viennese. The Viennese 
women are marvels. They can meet Parisiennes on 
their own ground and at least share the honours. They 
have superb figures, attractive faces, a talent for dress, 
and, with all that, a certain vivacity, dash, vivid charm, 
that makes them, in the estimation of many critics, the 
most fascinating women of Europe, though they lack 
the subtle tact and finesse, the swift wit and ready 
adaptability, of the Frenchwoman. 

There are grave faces in the crowd that waits for its 
carriages and motors outside the pelouse after the race 
is over, but they are the exception. If one has lost — 
well, one must pay or must make someone else pay, and 
meanwhile the great day is not over. The horse has 



74 IN VANITY FAIR 

played his part, one has lost or won, the sun is dropping 
low in the west; but if one has lost, one can drown 
regret; if one has gained, one must celebrate the victory. 
The long night lies beyond the sunset, and Paris is at its 
best under artificial light. 

So the tide sets back toward Paris, along the channels 
by which it came, and once more the green silence of the 
Bois is shattered by the beat of hoofs, the roll of wheels, 
the "teuf-teuf of automobiles, the laughter and chatter 
of a multitude. It has seen many sights, this famous 
Bois, since the days when it was the quiet old foret de 
Rouvray, and, if the little green leaves could but speak — 
but the budget of gossip is large enough in Paris without 
such an avalanche of new items as the leaves could 
supply. 

For weeks beforehand every table in the fashionable 
restaurants has been reserved for the evening of the 
Grand Prix. Armenonville is crowded to its limits. 
The Madrid, not so cosmopolitan but popular with the 
French, has not a vacant seat. The Pavilion Royal, 
the Cascade, and the other Bois restaurants are filled 
with folk whose swellness is in proportion to the standing 
of the place. 

Down in the city, the Cafe de Paris has the crowd 
corresponding to that at Armenonville, in the Bois. 
Durand's, Paillard's, Voisins, the Ritz, the Elysees — 
all have their quota of the patronage, and a host of 
restaurants less famed in social annals accommodate the 
lesser folk of the Grand Prix multitude. Everywhere 
there is eating, drinking, and making merry, and one 



FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF 75 

gives no thought to dying on the morrow. The hours 
go lightly to the accompaniment of music and laughter 
and the clink of coin, and when, after the dinner, the 
diners move on to the theatres, no serious drama is likely 
to claim them. Glitter, gaiety, and frivolity are the 
keynotes of this June day from start to finish, and the 
staid Comedie Fran^aise is left high and dry, while all 
the "tingle-tangles'' are packed to suffocation. 

Les Varietes, Les Nouveautes, Le Mathurins and the 
other Boulevard resorts, Les Ambassadeurs, THorloge 
and places of similar type — these are the after-dinner 
rendezvous for Grand Prix night, and every famous cafe 
chantant in the city reaps a harvest. Then, when theatre 
is over, a large percentage of the celebrating world 
brings up at Maxim's. Folk who go there at no other 
time drift in on that one night, and the crowd is a motley 
one, a conglomeration of types, the concentrated distil- 
lation of the variety, the extravagance, the gaiety of 
Paris — reckless, feverish, pleasure-mad Paris. 

So Grand Prix day ends; and, with it, according to 
tradition, ends the Paris season. In the old days this 
was true. The morrow of the Grand Prix saw the 
fashionables packing trunks for the country, Brittany, 
Normandy, — anywhere, everywhere, away from Paris; 
but the flight was one of convention. Paris is at its 
best in June, and the enjoyable weather is likely to last 
on into July. The mad rush of social engagements is 
over, so that one may relax and enjoy one's self in leis- 
urely 'fashion, may assume a social deshabille, go where 
one will, do what one will. And Parisiennes have grad- 



76 IN VANITY FAIR 

ually taken to lingering after Grand Prix. Until the second 
or third week in July one may see famous mondaines at 
the restaurants, the theatres, and the open-air clubs, 
which are a recent Parisian fad, may pass them driving 
in the Bois, or notice their equipages drawn up before 
the shops of the Rue de la Paix or the dressmaking 
palaces of the Place Vendome. After that time, however, 
though to the casual visitor Paris may seem as animated 
and as crowded as ever, he who knows la Ville Lumiere 
realizes that for the moment it is a social desert. The 
smart world is out round the Normandy circuit in the 
wake of the horses, is flirting and lounging and frivolling 
in seashore villas and casinos, is taking the baths and 
playing high at popular spas, or is motoring frantically 
over the face of Europe, with intervals for all of these 
occupations. It is the most restless class in the world, this 
Parisian smart set, — a class curiously compact of nerves 
and intellect, though the intellect is perhaps oddly 
applied to the purposes of life; and though a wealth of 
poetical similes has first and last been applied to la belle 
Parisienne, the one truthful if not poetic which would 
suit her best is the human peg-top. It spins to brave 
music, this peg-top, but its metier is to spin. 

Fifi and the Duchess take leave of the horses on the 
day of the Grand Prix, but they are on hand to cheer 
them at Caen, and the Normandy racing circuit is, in 
its way, quite as gay, quite as popular, as the racing 
season in Paris. The greater part of the fashionable 
Parisian world is in Normandy for the summer season 
and within easy motoring distance of all of the great 



FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF 77 

races. Those who are not so located come from wher- 
ever they may be summering to attend the opening of 
the circuit at Caen or the "grande semaine" at Deau- 
ville, Trouville. A multitude of humbler Parisians is 
also having its summer outing on the Normandy coast, 
and is quite as much devoted to racing as its social 
betters. And then Paris itself is but a few hours away, 
a short journey whether by train or motor, and folk city- 
bound may run up to the coast for the great racing days. 
So history repeats itself at Caen, at Houlgate, at 
Deauville, at Dieppe, at Ostend. It is the old story of 
Auteuil and Longchamps over again, with a different set- 
ting; — the same horses, the same owners, the same 
jockeys, the same onlookers. Only the women's frocks 
are new and Paris is hours away, while white sands and 
blue sea are close at hand. There is a short fall racing 
season round about Paris, crowded in twixt summer out- 
ings and the time of dog and gun. Then Fifi and the 
Duchess tuck their betting books away until after the 
Riviera season. Perhaps they foot up their gains and 
losses. Much more probably they do nothing of the 
kind. Why bother with what Mr. Mantalini would call 
"the demn'd total." The races have served their pur- 
pose. They have furnished amusement and excitement, 
have fed the avid nerves. One has danced and has paid 
the piper — or has persuaded someone else to pay him. 
Now one must give one's mind to toilettes for the 
Riviera. The racing season is past, and with the Pari- 
sienne the past — be it but the yesterday — is buried 
deep. 



CHAPTER V 

LE SPORT IN PARIS 

Parisian society is not given over wholly to racing 
during those weeks that lie between the March winds 
and braziers of Auteuil and the sunshine and flowers of 
Grand Prix. Smart social functions of all kinds are 
packed closely into the sunshiny days and the balmy 
nights, and the daytime reunions have increased and 
multiplied during recent years; for the Parisienne has 
taken up "le sport." 

It is a tyrant, le sport. It exacts the surrender of 
many of the self-indulgent habits of Madame. It de- 
mands of her more violent exercise than is agreeable to 
the true Frenchwoman; it forces her into short frocks 
for which she has no love; it endangers her carefully 
protected complexion; it interferes with her siesta; it 
even gets her up early in the morning after a night of 
dancing and merry-making — but it is chic, tr-r-r-es 
chic, le sport, and so the Parisienne accepts it with the 
verve which characterizes all she does. 

The English and Americans are responsible for the 
rise of sports in Paris, and neither Frenchmen nor French- 
women will ever, as a class, go in for tennis, golf, hockey, 
polo, etc., with the genuine energy and enjoyment dis- 

78 



LE SPORT IN PARIS 79 

played by their transatlantic and trans-channel cousins; 
but they go through the motions and they have the most 
ornate and attractive of installations for each separate 
sport, and there is a small French element which actually 
distinguishes itself in outdoor athletics. The English 
and American residents in Paris do the rest, and so le 
sport flourishes mightily round about the city on the 
Seine. 

To certain forms of sport, the Parisian takes as nat- 
urally as does a duck to water. He loves excitement, 
danger, swift motion. He will take, with a reckless 
audacity, sporting risks at which an Englishman or 
American might hesitate; but ask him to work hard at 
a game, to lame his muscles and blister his feet and 
hands, and earn his golf score or tennis score or hockey 
score by the sweat of his brow, and, as a rule, he will beg 
to be excused. What is true of the Parisian is true of 
tiie Parisienne. Both combine a certain sensuous indo- 
lence of body with a wild energy of nerves and brain. 
They do not like exercise, but they adore excitement; 
and it is only in the sports that cater to their nervous 
excitability that they excel. 

The automobile whirled its way straight into the hearts 
of the French. From the first it was extravagantly 
popular in Paris. Here was a sport that suited perfectly 
the French temperament. There was danger in it, ex- 
citement in it, piquancy in it. It afforded exhilaration. 
It provided the swift changes and sudden contrasts so 
dear to the restless and dramatic temperament. With 
an automobile as slave of the lamp, one could range far 



8o IN VANITY FAIR 

afield even in one short day, and the possibiHties held 
in solution within the twenty-four hours were multiplied 
astonishingly when the motor made its debut in Parisian 
society. Small wonder that it was greeted with acclaim. 

One might fancy that the dijfficulty of looking well in 
motor costume would prejudice the Parisienne against 
the machine, for with her, the most important thing 
connected with taking up a new sport is the excuse 
offered for a new and piquant costume. But the diffi- 
culties in the way of the motor woman merely added 
zest to the adoption of the fad. 

Madame flew to her dressmaker. 

"Tiens, M'sieu. I have bought three automobiles. 
What shall I wear?" 

And Monsieur brought his brows together in his most 
effective and judicial fashion, led the fair motor woman 
to an inner room where the conference might have the 
quiet demanded by such weighty consultations, and set 
himself to planning methods of leaping this sartorial 
hurdle. 

Some of the experimental stages of the Parisian motor 
costume were fearful and wonderful, and even now 
our importers bring over spectacular motor outfits to 
which are attached the names of famous makers; but, 
on the whole, the Parisienne has mastered the problem 
of motor dress. 

For her electric brougham and victoria and the other 
luxurious, smooth-running electric vehicles in which she 
speeds over the asphalt and takes her afternoon outing 
in the Bois, no special costume is required. Perhaps, 



LE SPORT IN PARIS 8i 

if she IS her own chauffeuse, she wears a trim tailor 
frock and hat, but no eccentricity enters into her attire 
even then, and, as a rule, she wears what she might wear 
were the carriage drawn by horses instead of being 
propelled by electricity. 

If she is going farther afield — out to the Henri Quatre 
for luncheon, to the Reservoir for dinner — she wears an 
all-enveloping dust cloak to protect her delicate frock, 
a veil or perhaps a hood to cover her fragile hat and 
shield her face and hair from dust, but beneath this 
outer wrapping she is as exquisite, as elaborate as ever. 
When it comes to longer runs, or to genuine touring, the 
Parisienne promptly abandons all effort to look well on 
the road. To be comfortable, to be suitably dressed, 
to be immaculate at the journey's end, — all these aims 
demand the setting aside of a desire to be beautiful; and, 
since she may not beT^eautiful, the quick-witted Madame 
seizes upon the possibility of being piquant and goes to 
the extreme of attaining the hideous in pursuit of the 
practical. She hides figure, hair, face. Even her spark- 
Hng eyes are eclipsed behind goggles or dimmed by 
masks, and she consoles herself for the ugliness by 
thought of the dramatic effect with which she may 
flutter from the cocoon when her butterfly moment 
arrives. 

One sees these transformations by the score at such a 
rendezvous as Chantilly at the time of the ''Derby," for 
it is the mode to motor to Chantilly on the eve of the 
important day and put up over night at the Grand 
Conde, or to arrive in time for luncheon before the races. 



82 IN VANITY FAIR 

Machine after machine dashes up to the hotel, discharges 
its freight of grotesque figures and wheezes away to the 
garage. Madame, carrying a hat box, and cloaked, 
hooded, masked, powdered with dust, hurries to the 
chamber reserved for her. In a twinkling there trips 
from the room which swallowed the awesome enigma 
a charming woman, fresh, dainty, smiling, gowned in 
the airiest and most delicate of confections. Or perhaps 
there is not even the moment of seclusion. A toot, a 
whir, a quick reversing of levers! The automobile has 
stopped. A dusty, shrouded, shapeless figure springs 
lightly to the step, while the idlers look on curiously. 
A swift movement of the hands and the hood falls back; 
another, and the cloak slips from the shoulders. There 
is Fifi, a Dresden china figure all fluttering frills and laces 
and ribbon and flowers, a smile on her lips, a challenge 
in her eyes. 

"C'est chic, 9a," comments the old Marquis over his 
Burgundy. "All that there is of the most modern, mon 
gar^on!" 

Paris is the city of automobiles, and France is the 
motor tourist's paradise. The roads are good, the inns 
are excellent and are rapidly improving under the in- 
fluence of the motor touring, and on every hand are 
picturesque towns and picturesque scenery, not too rug- 
ged for the peace of mind of the average chaufi'eur. 

Many inns known to history, but fallen from their 
high estate in later years, are looking up again since the 
motor took the road. At any hour, a gay crowd of folk, 
masquerading in dust coats and goggles and hoods, may 



LE SPORT IN PARIS 83 

appear at the door demanding luncheon or dinner. 
They know a good wine and a good sauce, these travellers, 
and they scatter gold in a fashion that recalls stories of 
the days when the great men of old France and their 
retinues took their ease in this same inn. Mine host's 
heart warms to the devil wagon and its Parisian freight. 
He brings long hoarded bottles covered with cobwebs 
up from the cellars, he sacrifices his choicest chickens, 
he goes into the kitchen himself to prepare the fish and 
the sauces, he scolds his wife and bullies the cook and 
embraces the maid, all from pure excitement, and beams 
upon the world in general and the motorists in particular; 
for he sees the dawn of a new day and hears the clink of 
coin in his long empty tills. 

He gives to the party of his best; and, when they 
whirl away, he stands at his door watching the cloud of 
dust that envelopes tliem. Then he draws a long breath, 
sniffs ecstatically at the gasoline-laden air. 

"Que j'aime cette odeur la!" he says v/ith fervour. 
The automobile has an ardent friend in mine host of 
the country inn. 

With the restaurant keeper at Paris, the story is a 
different one. It is so easy to run away from the city 
for luncheon or dinner since the motor car is at one's 
service, and the wandering has an effect upon the re- 
ceipts in the town restaurant. Moreover, — one smiles 
at this, but it is told in all seriousness and with lively grief 
by the proprietors of certain cafes, and echoed dolefully 
by women accustomed to late suppers and carousals in 
those rendezvous, — the automobile has been a reforming 



84 IN VANITY FAIR 

agent. It has interfered with the long estabhshed habits 
of the gilded youth and more heavily gilded age, wont to 
furnish the late suppers and the wherewithal for carousal. 

"It makes a difference, the automobile, a great differ- 
ence," confides the discreet waiter. "Monsieur now 
rises early. Before, he was up early, also, but with a 
difference. Now he is to make a day's run in his 
car. The programme requires that he shall start with 
the sunrise. It demands steady nerves, the automo- 
biling. One needs sleep, — and Monsieur goes to bed 
early. Owz, c^est dommage, Qa derange les choseSy but 
he will not stay. No; he is devoted to the automobile. 
He will even sleep for it. It will pass, perhaps, this 
mania. They pass always, the manias. Then again 
we will have the old crowd, and in the meantime there 
are, fortunately, those who do not own the machines." 

Of places furnishing the motive for short automobile 
trips from Paris there is no end, and the roads running 
out of the city swarm with cars. There are quiet-loving 
country folk who protest, futilely, but even the country 
horse and the excitable barnyard fowl of France have 
become accustomed to the snort of the motor and the 
onward rush of the demon, and are, like Pet Marjorie's 
turkey, "more than usual calm" as the great machine 
speeds past. 

One meets them everywhere, these automobiles. Out 
in the Forest of Fontainebleau the mosses are still green 
and gold where the sunshine filters to them through the 
interlacing branches of the great trees. The rocks are 
still covered with grey and green and faint purple 




The First Sportswoman of France 



LE SPORT IN PARIS 85 

lichens. Little wood creatures rustle among the ferns 
and heather. Bird-notes sound from the branches over- 
head and from the thicket depths. The forest is still 
the grey-green, gold-green, brown and violet forest 
beloved of French artists, but one cannot walk for ten 
minutes along the woodland paths without hearing the 
blast of a Gabriel horn and seeing a huge automobile 
plunge by, its occupants blind to the light and shadow 
and colour, deaf to the rustle in the brake and the music 
from the bough, absorbed simply and solely in the 
breathless speed of their pace and in the skill with which 
the chauffeur swings round corners, dodges boulders, 
and avoids climbing trees, for to the motor maniac, 
Fontainebleau means the Hotel d'Angleterre and lunch- 
eon. To the impotent rage of the artist clan, the motor 
has invaded Barbizon as well, and is to be found by 
the dozen, puffing and panting outside the inn sacred 
to the Bohemians of the Latin Quarter and Mont- 
martre. "C'est tres gentil, Barbizon — tres chic,'' says 
Madame with an approving nod of her hooded head, 
as she climbs into the auto, after her luncheon. Shades 
of Millet and Corot and Rousseau! Barbizon has lived 
to be called " tres chic " by a Parisian Duchess in 
a blue silk hood. 

Wherever historic memories and associations cluster 
most thickly, where ghosts walk in the greatest numbers, 
there the automobile roars and rattles and toots and 
puffs its consummately modern way. Many Parisians 
are for the first time discovering France since motor 
touring came into vogue. Even Fifi talks French history 



86 IN VANITY FAIR 

and folk-lore. She has invoked the sunken city of Y's 
as she sped through Brittany in her Panhard. She has 
a speaking acquaintance with all Normandy. She has 
motored down through old Provence on her gay way to 
Monte Carlo. If she remembers stopping places rather 
by what she had to eat there than by historic associations 
— still she has enlarged her horizon. Even gastronomic 
voyaging is educational. 

Close to Paris there are popular restaurants, within 
driving distance and almost too near at hand to please 
those who seek luncheon or dinner in motor cars. The 
Henri Quatre at St. Germain is frequented more than 
ever by Parisian diners, since motoring eliminated dis- 
tance. The Reservoir at Versailles, the Bellevue at 
Meudon, the Cadran Bleu at St. Cloud — all have their 
motoring contingents, and at luncheon and dinner hours 
there is a host of machines waiting before these country 
restaurants, where one may have the luxury of Paris 
and the beauty and seclusion of nature, provided one 
has the money to pay for the abnormal combination — 
which comes high. 

One goes to the golf links, too, in one's automobile, 
unless one prefers driving out — for the motor has not 
yet entirely undermined the Parisian's love for a smart 
trap and good pair of horses. 

There are various links near Paris, all more or less 
frequented by devotees of le sport, but the links at 
La Boulie, near Versailles, are, with the exception of 
those at Deauville, the finest in France. All the smart 
S€t of Paris goes to la Boulie to flirt, to gossip, to drink 



LE SPORT IN PARIS 87 

and smoke and play cards and meet friends. Inci- 
dentally golf is played, and real golfers, enjoying the 
beautiful course and the perfect greens, bless the day 
when golf became a Parisian fad, and look tolerantly at 
the goodly collection of dukes and counts and princes and 
bankers and diplomats who sit in the shade of the big bun- 
galow during the long golden afternoon, drinking Scotch 
whiskey and soda, — as a concession to the genius loci, — 
and watching with a certain amused wonder the scattered 
figures toiling around the links in the glare of the sun. 

"After all, they stood for the thing," says Willy, as he 
picks his bail out of the last hole and turns toward the 
indolent groups around the club-house. 

That is just it. They stood for it all; and if a majority 
of the men do not play — well, tastes differ. It is a 
charming place to "five-o 'docker," is la Boulie. 

The Parisienne and her admirers admit that, from one 
point of view, golf has profound merit. As an excuse 
for a prolonged promenade a deux it is admirable and 
"le flirt" thrives famously on the links. One is willing 
to make sacrifices in the interests of flirtation; but that 
one should golf for the love of golfing, should play from 
sun up to sun down alone or with another man, — *'(^a, 
c'est trop," says Monsieur with a shrug of his shapely 
shoulders, and, having imbibed whiskey and soda for 
the sake of the golfing unities, he orders a vermouth by 
way of relaxation. Even assisting at le sport is exacting, 
very exacting. One becomes fatigued. 

And yet there are Frenchmen who love the game and 
play it well, and if one covets the privilege of familiarly 



88 IN VANITY FAIR 

shouting "fore" at a Russian Grand Duke, or an Italian 
Prince, or an Austrian Baron, la Boulie is the place in 
which to gratify that heart's desire. The visitor to 
Paris may have the entree to the club by virtue of one 
dollar a day and introductions from tV70 of the club 
members; but though the dollar may be procurable, the 
casual tourist is not likely to enjoy the acquaintance of 
two members of the la Boulie set, and the chances are 
that he does his Parisian golfing at I'Hermitage, where 
any respectable introduction is an open sesame. 

Some of the smartest of Parisiennes have gone in for 
golf and play fairly well, but they golf in costumes that 
would fill the Scotch and English lassies of the famous 
scores with frank amazement. 

"You have seen Lady L ," whispers Madame of 

the Rue de la Paix golfing costume. "She is English, 
yes. It is wonderful how she plays golf — and without 
a corset! But yes, vraiment, quite without a corset. 
C'est incroyable 9a. One has the lines of a poplar." 

It all depends upon the point of view. One sacrifices 
one's game or one's curves. Either way, the choice has 
its compensations. 

L'Hermitage is not so chic as la Boulie, but there are 
true golfers, even among the social elect, who enjoy 
playing on the Hermitage links and Hke the democratic 
geniality of the less exclusive club; so the membership 
list has its sprinkling of notable names. 

The course lies out near St. Germain, on the old farm 
of M. Jean Boussod, and neither the links nor the house 
will compare with la Boulie in point of art and costliness; 



LE SPORT IN PARIS 89 

but there is a charm in the cluster of old-fashioned 
cottages over which the vines and roses clamber, in the 
raftered dining-room, in the old fruit trees under which 
tea is served, in the stately poplars which stand sentinel 
over the place, and in the informality which makes even 
the tourist stranger feel less far from Ardsley and 
Baltusrol. 

There are good links at Compiegne, too, but Com- 
piegne is too far from Paris for the ordinary golfer, 
unless he is going away for a week-end of the sport, and 
only in hot weather do the Parisians stray so far from 
the boulevards in pursuit of the royal game. 

For tennis, the Parisienne has more love than for golf. 
The game is an older friend, and then, though it does 
not furnish, as does golf, ample pretext for prolonged 
solitude a deux, it does have a dramatic quality, a 
certain swift dash and spirit which appeal to Madame's 
temperament and are lacking in the more protracted 
and leisurely game. There are good tennis courts at 
the golf clubs and in various parts of the Bois, but it is 
at the Cercle de Tile de Puteaux that one finds tennis at 
its best and most picturesque. It- is one of the most 
fashionable and most exclusive clubs of Paris, this club 
on the little island of Puteaux, in the Seine. One sees 
there no one who is not of the elect, and the little ferry 
that carries the chosen spirits to these Elysian fields is 
thronged with the beauty and fashion of Paris, day after 
day, during the season. Such a gay freight the Httle 
ferry carries when Puteaux is especially en fete, such 
charming women, such ravishing gowns, such bewitching 



90 IN VANITY FAIR 

hats, such coquettish parasols, such admiring cavahers! 
A veritable "embarquement pour Cythere!" The ferry 
should be guided by flutterings loves, a la Fragonard, 
instead of by the most prosaic Charon who fills the posi- 
tion and regards, unmoved, the carnival of the vanities. 

They play tennis at Puteaux, but they play at the 
making of love and of epigrams and of fashion more 
earnestly still. One may see all the fashion leaders of 
the beau monde drinking tea there on a bright spring 
afternoon, — the lovable young Duchesse d'Uzes, with 
her excessive modernity grafted upon her ancient lineage 
and traditions; the beautiful Madame Letellier, who is 
one of the best dressed women of Paris; the blonde and 
chic Vicomtesse Foy, the popular Mrs. Ridgway, the 
wealthy Baronne Henri de Rothschild, Baronne Seilliere. 
These are some of the women who set the fashions, but 
the complete list is a long one, and Puteaux brings 
together all these orchids of Paris. 

There have been memorable evening fetes at Puteaux 
when the island was converted into a fairyland of 
gleaming lights and mysterious shadows of flowers and 
music, and all that modern luxury which is pagan in its 
prodigality; and cotillions are given there regularly 
during a part of the season. But the island is at its best 
when the sun is shining on it and touching to vividness 
the pretty frocks of the tennis players in the courts, 
when vivacious women in wonderful gowns and hats are 
gossiping over their tea in the shade or flirting under 
their parasols of chiffon and lace. It belongs to the 
open-air phase of French society, does Puteaux, for, 




b 



C/3 



LE SPORT IN PARIS 91 

oddly enough, the Parisienne of the scented boudoir and 
the hot-house associations has a passion for plein air. 

Out in the Bois there are open-air clubs and to spare, 
the Polo Club and the Tir au Pigeon being those most 
frequented by the fashionable 'set during spring and 
summer, vvhile the club des Patineurs is the smart 
skating club and one of the most attractive social ren- 
dezvous of winter Paris. The Parisienne loves skating. 
Here is a sport that lends itself amiably to coquetry, a 
sport for which one may plan the most piquant of cos- 
tumes. Furs are becoming and extravagant, and looking 
well at an extravagant cost is the fashionable Parisienne's 
chief aim in life. So Madame orders her skating cos- 
tumes of fur and cloth and velvet, buys an assortment 
of skating boas more ornamental than practical, and 
plays in her skating as in all her sports a role vastly 
ornamental, impressively dramatic. Yachting, too, is 
dear to the heart of our Lady of the Chiffons, though her 
yachting consists chiefly in dressing the part. Scoffers 
say that the French have a flourishing yacht club but no 
yachts, and while this statement is more amusing than 
accurate, the actual facts do suggest some such comic- 
opera situation, for though there is a yacht club of 
France, extremely swell and of large membership, and 
though several wealthy Frenchmen own superb yachts, 
there is little serious French yachting. Boating of one 
sort or another is indulged in along the Seine, and a large 
flotilla of small private launches and yachts lies in the 
basin of Deauville during the Normandy season, but the 
yachting races of the Regatta week at Havre are given 



92 IN VANITY FAIR 

over almost wholly to foreigners, French entries being 
extremely rare. 

Not until within the past year did the fashionable folk 
of Paris take up with ardour any form of water sport. 
The motor boat has brought about the revolution and 
has the distinction of being the latest Parisian fad. It 
is easy to understand why this most modern form of 
boating has caught the Parisian fancy. Like the auto- 
mobile, it appeals irresistibly to the French temperament. 
It demands no active exercise and it offers exhilaration, 
swift travel, danger, novelty. Last summer there was 
a race for motor boats from Paris to the sea; and, while 
the little boats were scudding along the river, the society 
folk interested in them were spinning along the road 
from Paris to Trouville in their automobiles, making 
calls at the chateaux en route, and reaching Trouville- 
Deauville, in time to see the up-to-date little boats fol- 
low up their three days' race to Havre by racing for the 
Menier cup in Trouville Bay. The motor boat came into 
its own that day, and next summer it will rival the horse 
and the automobile in the affections of sporting Paris. 

Already a number of Parisiennes have adopted the 
dangerous playthings. Madame du Gast, upon whom 
some judges bestow the title of ** first sportswoman of 
France," is an ardent devotee of motor boating as she 
has been of automobiling. She has all the daring of her 
race associated with an easy nonchalance and imper- 
turbable self-control which never deserts her even under 
the most trying circumstances; and no pastime is too 
dangerous, no risk too hazardous for her, provided only 



LE SPORT IN PARIS 93 

that there is amusement connected with the danger and 
hazard. She has made a record in automobile races 
and ballooning, and she hailed the motor boat with joy 
at its first appearance; but her sporting enthusiasm had 
of course its Parisian side. There was the costume to 
be considered — always the costume is the starting-point 
of a Parisienne's sport. The motor boat is a treach- 
erous plaything. It upsets, blows up, sinks, — and 
when one starts out in a promenade a bateau, one is 
likely to swim home, so petticoats and chiffons are not 
for motor boating. Madame du Gast wears what looks 
much like swimming tights, save that the one-piece 
garment is high of neck, long of sleeve, and at the knee 
tucks into trim high boots that may be kicked off if 
occasion demands. Over this practical attire goes a 
loose, handsome coat of sporting allure which quite hides 
the tights and falls over the tops of the well- fitted boots; 
a becoming cap warranted to stay on without attention 
from its wearer — and there you have the owner of the 
Camille as she looks when she enters a race. When she 
had the Turquoise built for the Monaco races, Madame 
du Gast indulged in a bit of drama characteristically 
French. S. A. R. the Prince of Monaco stood sponsor 
for the slim little craft. There was a ceremony, with 
great sheaves of flowers nodding over the bow of the 
boat and bedewed with the christening champagne, with 
gaily attired friends looking on, and with the canon 
from a neighbouring church in gorgeous vestments 
solemnly bestowing baptism and the blessing of the 
church upon the nautical infant. Roses and champagne 



94 IN VANITY FAIR 

and smart frocks, and the owner of Monte Carlo, and 
the church — all joining in the launching of the racing 
boat of a charming sportswoman in swimming tights 
and top boots! There you have a snapshot of le sport 
as it is sometimes played in France. 

The Camille, named for Madame du Gast herself, 
and a motor boat more pretentious than the Turquoise, 
entered, with owner aboard, the famous and foolhardy 
high seas race from Tangiers to Toulon, and though 
strong winds and rough seas played havoc with all of 
the tiny craft, and the Camille and her owner were rescued 
at the eleventh hour by her escorting yacht, Madame 
did not lose for a moment her sporting nerve. She was 
obtaining excitement in large blocks and the thrill was 
well worth the danger. 

It goes without saying that the young Duchesse 
d'Uzes has taken up motor boating. 

When has she ever passed by a new sport, a new 
chance for diversion, this gay little Duchess, who is the 
typical fine flower of modern French civilization, the 
most piquant and perhaps the most popular figure in 
French society to-day. 

She was born to social eminence, daughter of the great 
and ancient family of de Luynes, sister of the ninth Duke 
of Chaulnes and Pecquinguy, rich in her own name, 
good to look at, keen of wit, exquisite of taste, and 
stranger to fear. As if this were not enough, she must 
needs marry Louis Emmanuel, fourteenth Duke d'Uzes, 
and add his prestige and wealth to hers. 

The dowager Duchesse d'Uzes, she who came so 



LE SPORT IN PARIS 95 

near mounting Boulanger on the back of France, is of the 
old regime, strong, keen, autocratic still, but surrounding 
herself with the old customs, the old traditions, refusing 
to admit that the world has moved and France with it. 

But the young Duchess — she is all that there is of 
the most modern, the most representative type of the 
motoring, racing, golfing, hunting, hockey-playing Pari- 
sienne. She is all restlessness, all nerves. There is 
nothing new that she has not tried, and she is always 
reaching out for something more novel, more exciting, 
more audacious. And yet with it all she is grande dame, 
the little pleasure-seeking Duchess, and she wears her 
title right royally in spite of her vagaries. She has the 
traditions of her race, too, behind her modern caprices. 
She is devote, has her private chaplain, is heart and 
soul in sympathy with the church party as opposed to 
state, she loves politics and ranges herself with her class. 
Not for nothing is one of de Luynes and d'Uzes. She 
was in the heart of the turmoil on the Place de la Con- 
corde, at the meeting of protest against the state's 
measures concerning the nuns, and she was taken by 
the troops, this hot-headed little Duchess, though it was 
the dowager Duchess who was arrested and fined. She 
would go to the scaffold humming a tune and wearing 
her smartest Paquin frock, were she called upon to 
tread the path many of her ancestors trod, but, since 
scaffolds are out of date, she runs a motor boat and 
speeds an automobile, and dances a cake walk, and 
plays an extraordinar)' game of billiards, and is one of 
the best shots in France, and plays tennis and hockey 



96 IN VANITY FAIR 

and golf, and rides cross country, and swims like a fish, 
and has made ballooning the fashion. She is one of the 
prettiest, the most amusing, the cleverest and the best 
dressed women of Paris, and she, beyond all of her set, is 
the champion of le sport. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE FINE ART OF DINING 

Paris is full of restaurants, but the list of those at 
which one may enjoy both a supremely chic fashion 
exhibit and a dinner worthy to be associated with the 
clothes are comparatively few. Indeed, where the 
frocks are up to an epicurean standard the food is some- 
times far below, and there are cafes in Paris where a 
gourmet will find possibilities of ecstatic moments, but 
where no swish of petticoats will break in upon his rapt 
silences. 

Not that the average viveur of Paris objects to asso- 
ciation of pate and petticoat. Far from it. He will 
follow the petticoat even to the Ritz where the pate is 
fairly sure to be poor, — but he will occupy his leisure 
intervals by enjoying a meal at the Cafe Voisin, or 
testing the famous cellars at the Cafe Anglais. 

As for Madame, — she is a bit of a gourmande, of 
course. One does not live in Paris for years without 
learning the proper attitude toward a dinner, and the 
Parisienne thinks more about her food than is consistent 
with traditions of the fragile and ethereal feminine. 
When a poetic vision in vaporous mousseline and lace 
knits her beautiful brows and pouts her curving Hps 
and waxes vastly indignant because an entree has not 

97 



98 IN VANITY FAIR 

the right flavour or because a wine is not of the vintage 
indicated by the label on the bottle, there is an uneasy 
stirring in the mental pigeonhole where the observer 
keeps his illusions; but, after all, the Parisienne, though 
knowing in matters gastronomic, does not allow that 
knowledge to destroy her sense of proportion. She 
may like a good sauce and a good wine, but she insists 
first of all that a dinner shall be well seasoned with 
gaiety. She wants to dine where she may wear her 
smartest frock and see the smartest frock of her dearest 
foe, where she may see and be seen. She is coquette 
before she is gourmande, and the restaurants where 
she can combine both roles are those to which she 
accords most enthusiastic favour. 

Go out to the Bois on a fine night in June, if pates 
and petticoats divide your allegiance, and eat your 
dinner in the courtyard of the Chateau de Madrid or 
on the terrace at Armenonvllle. If you are a stranger 
in Paris the latter will probably be your choice. The 
fame of Armenonville has travelled far, and it stands 
for all that Paris means to the visitor who has gained 
his knowledge of the sorceress city from reading and 
hearsay. It is in the Bois, this famous restaurant 
where all the mad, merry world of Europe has dined 
at one time or another, and, though rivals have come 
and gone, though restaurants more elaborate and cui- 
sines more perfect have wooed the luxury-loving crowd, 
Armenonville has held its own, has kept its place as 
the most brilliantly popular cafe of Paris — and the 
most cosmopolitan. 




03 

N 



C 









THE FINE ART OF DINING 99 

Frankly speaking, the cafe retains its vogue by favour 
of the demi-mondaine of Paris. Long ago she chose 
Armenonville for her own, and she has remained loyal 
to her choice. This is not saying that for the beau- 
monde the restaurant is taboo. Everybody goes to 
Armenonville, but there, as to no other cafe, flock the 
high-class demi-mondaines with their elaborate toi- 
lettes, their superb jewels, their consumm.ately sensuous 
allure; and, as always, in their wake comes a reckless, 
prodigal crowd. Terrace, verandahs, and inner rooms 
are thronged night after night, and the throng is the 
incarnation of the spirit that has made Paris the hub 
of the frivolous world, has drawn from all countries 
folk devoted to the worship of the vanities, has stamped 
the money-spending set of Paris as the most consistently 
volatile, the most systematically extravagant class of 
Vanity Fair. 

The leisure class of France is unreservedly a leisure 
class. The Frenchman of wealth, rank, and leisure 
is Ukely to give himself up to what somxcone has called 
"the science of not making a living." He does not 
have the vast business interests that usually claim 
the wealthy American, he does not go in for pubHc life 
as does the average Englishman of a corresponding 
class; and, though exceptions to this rule are many, 
the chances are that he concentrates his energies upon 
amusing himself and assiduously cultivates every taste 
that will open an avenue to pleasurable sensation. 

He is, for instance, connoisseur of food and wine, 
but he is epicure not glutton. Your true gourmet has 



100 IN VANITY FAIR 

with much effort and at considerable cost trained his 
palate to an appreciation of subtle distinctions, of vague, 
elusive flavours. Eating and drinking are serious mat- 
ters with him. He eats not to kill his appetite but to 
tickle his senses, and he values his capacity for epicu- 
rean joys too highly to endanger it by riotous indulgence. 
The Parisian viveur devotes to his meals an extrava- 
gant amount of consideration. They are to him sacred 
rites, mystic, unfathomable to the uninitiated. The 
dishes are planned and arranged with reference to their 
relation to one another, are harmonized, blended, re- 
solved into wonderful, sense-satisfying gastronomic 
chords. A succession of flavours leads subtly and 
cumulatively to a gastronomic climax, drinks are not 
absorbed with blithe impartiality, but run a faultless 
scale of stimulation and form a fitting accompaniment 
to the progressive harmony of the food. 

It is with other pleasures as with eating and drinking. 
The Parisian takes his gaiety with profound seriousness, 
and the foreigner, as well as the Parisian, if he stays 
long in Paris, adapts himself to the epicurean point 
of view. 

Out at Armenonville, one comes into an understand- 
ing of that modern paganism which lies at the heart 
of Vanity Fair, though the scene does not represent 
the most subtly aesthetic expression of the cult, for the 
place is overcrowded, and there is a hurrying and bus- 
tling of waiters, the laughter is a trifle too loud, the 
perfumes are a trifle too heavy, the jewels a trifle too 
resplendent. There is a burning fever in the pulse of 



THE FINE ART OF DINING loi 

Armenonville, a strain of coarseness in the gaiety. 
The Vanity worshippers go about their devotions with 
finer art over among the great trees of the courtyard 
of Madrid. 

But Armenonville is — Armenonville. One must 
take it as one finds it, and one is likely to find it amusing. 

The flowers and napery and service of the little tables 
on the terrace — more popular on a summer night than 
the tables within doors — glow with a roseate bloom 
under the shaded lights. Vivid ruby and topaz gleam 
in the wine-glasses, the air is throbbing with the wild, 
passionate music of the Tziganes. Men of all types 
and from all quarters of the globe lean to look into the 
eyes of women marvellously gowned, magnificently 
jewelled, flushed under the influence of music and wine 
and admiration and conscious power. Laughter, wit, 
the tinkle of glasses, the hum of voices talking gossip 
in all the languages of Europe, delicately cooked dishes, 
rare wines, colour, perfume, melody, — everywhere an 
appeal to the senses, an eff*ort to meet the demands of 
a class with tastes trained to appreciate the fine flower 
of all things material, and with money to pay for the 
gratification of its desires! Nothing in old Rome was 
in spirit more essentially pagan and prodigal than this, 
but latter-day civilization has brought its refinements. 
The Roman orgy has been translated into polite French. 

If one sits long enough at one of the terrace tables, 
familiar faces are likely to float within one's range of 
vision, for all the world pays tribute to Armenonville, 
and public characters are many in the crowd. Opera 



102 IN VANITY FAIR 

singers, theatrical folk, famous writers and painters, 
professional beauties, diplomats, — all the celebrities 
whose pictures are most often in the papers are among 
the diners. Over there at the end table, Tod Sloan is 
sitting opposite a radiant being in cerise and silver. 
At the next table the Prime Minister of England is 
dining with an American Duchess and her English 
Duke. Beyond her Grace, little Polaire of "Claudine" 
fame is keeping a tableful of men in a gale of laughter. 
An American millionaire is host to a group of theatrical 
folk of whom Maxine Elliott is bright particular star, 
and close at hand the Newstraten, who owes her no- 
toriety to the favour of another millionaire, is vis-a-vis 
to a well-known Russian nobleman. Rejane, the ever- 
youthful, is exchanging good French for bad with an 
English theatrical manager. Leopold, King of the 
Belgians, boulevardier, dear friend of Parisian cocottes, 
is in evidence. A Turkish pasha with several members 
of his suite is back to back with the greatest brewer of 
England. London's latest Maharajah is having a royal 
occidental time in company with several pretty and titled 
English women. Mrs. Clarence Mackay and several 
other members of the New York smart set are among 
the elaborately gowned diners — but Madame Stanley 
and Margyl and the beautiful Cavalieri are gowned 
as well and more bejewelled. The crowd is never the 
same, yet always the same, and all through the year 
the show goes on, though cold weather drives the diners 
from the terrace to over-heated and over-lighted rooms. 
Over at the Madrid, too, there is picturesque dining 



THE FINE ART OF DINING 103 

— but with a difference. The old chateau lies on the 
edge of the Bois, an unimposing building promising 
little, and, so far as the building itself is concerned, 
fulfilling its promises. One does not go to the Madrid 
in winter. The rooms are small and stuffy, and poorly 
adapted to restaurant purposes, but during the season 
of al fresco dining, the Madrid is all that there is of the 
most modish, a gathering place for the most exclusive 
society folk of Paris. One drives boldly up to the 
chateau and into an archway that leads through the 
building and brings one out upon the edge of a big 
courtyard picturesquely set with fine old forest trees 
under which men and women are dining at little tables. 
Beyond the court are the stables and, though a high, 
thick hedge intervenes, a muflled stamping of hoofs, 
the jingle of silver chains, sometimes furnishes a sub- 
dued accompaniment to the music of the Tziganes, an 
element hardly discordant and suggesting vaguely 
ideas of mettled horses, of luxurious carriages, of all 
that goes to the self-indulgence of such diners as those 
beneath the trees. 

Things are more tranquil here than at Armenonville 

— gay, sense-satisfying, artificial, wordly, but of a finer 
flavour. Here one finds the most aristocratic of Parisian 
mondaines, the clique of the Polo Club and la Boulie 
and Puteaux. Many nationalities are represented 
among the diners, but the French are in the majority 
and the Parisienne of the best type may be found under 
the great trees of Madrid. She may be no more per- 
fectly dressed, this mondaine, than her demi-mondaine 



104 IN VANITY FAIR 

sister of Armenonville. Their frocks and hats come from 
the same makers, their jewels were bought at the same 
shop on the Rue de la Paix, the grande dame of Madrid 
has perhaps not so liberal a share of good looks as the 
lionne of Armenonville, and may be made up quite as 
conscientiously — for artificiality is beloved of the 
Parisienne, is a part of her creed — but my lady of 
Madrid has the something which sets her apart, the 
impress of race, of blood, of class. Even the veriest 
stranger within Parisian gates who might wander from 
one cafe to the other would realize at first impression 
that the two were separated by more than the green 
stretches of the Bois. As to which cafe he would prefer, 
that depends upon his tastes — and to some extent 
upon his mood. One who does not "belong" at Madrid 
may feel himself a lonely outsider. No one is on the 
outside at Armenonville save the bankrupt. 

There are other cafes in the Bois whose fortunes have 
risen and fallen, but none rank with Armenonville and 
Madrid, though quite recently the Cafe de Lac has taken 
a fresh lease of life and begun to find favour with the 
smart Parisian crowd. 

Report has it, however, that there is to be a new 
restaurant in the Bois, one that will totally eclipse the 
two reigning cafes, and will set a new standard for 
the world. A syndicate with unlimited capital has the 
project in hand, and it is said that the new pleasure 
palace will rise on the site of the old Pre Catalan, — 
Arcadian little farm where a herd of mild-eyed cows 
furnishes fresh milk for children, and a little cafe sup- 



THE FINE ART OF DINING 105 

plies drinks of less Arcadian simplicity to anyone who 
asks for them. For years the popular duelling ground 
of Paris was just behind the buildings of the Pre Cata- 
lan. There is a little ruined theatre, too, behind 
the restaurant, and all the smart world of Paris has 
upon occasion gone out there to see the actors of the 
Theatre Fran^ais and the Odeon give classical plays 
upon the sylvan stage. Such piquant incongruities 
are dear to the French heart. 

But it is in the middle of the afternoon that the Pre 
Catalan is charming. Carriages full of children, with 
their quaintly costumed bonnes or their fashionably 
dressed mammas, roll up, one after another, and deposit 
their loads, until the place is all abloom with babies 
and musical with pattering feet and babbling tongues. 
They have come to drink the fresh milk, these pretty, 
overdressed children. Even the babies lead a Kfe 
chic, in Paris. 

And when the babies are all snugly asleep in their 
beds, the Pre Catalan often has other visitors. Late 
diners who have made a night of it in town cafes, and 
then driven about the Bois singing romantic ballads 
and growing more maudlin moment by moment, drive 
up to the Pre Catalan in the grey dawn, and weep upon 
the shoulder of the waiter who brings them their glasses 
of fresh milk. It is milk they want. They are in a 
state of exuberant sentimentality — of dramatic re- 
morse. They have renounced Bacchus and all his 
crew. They are beginning new lives. The world is 
a weariness and a delusion, full of headaches and 



io6 IN VANITY FAIR 

profound melancholy — Fifi goes back to nature at the 
Pre Catalan in such a mood, — but midnight finds her 
at the Cafe de Paris once more. 

It is in this place of duels and babies and tipsy peni- 
tents that the new restaurant is to shine resplendent, 
if plans do not miscarry. Whether with all its grandeurs 
it will attract the crowd remains to be seen. A res- 
taurant's success is not always in proportion to the 
money spent in equipping it. There, for example, 
was the Cafe des Fleurs. It was the prettiest cafe in 
Paris. The men behind it were so wealthy that they 
did not care whether the place paid or not. They 
lavished money upon the decorations, the cuisine, the 
cellars. They hired the best Tzigane orchestra in Paris 
— and the fashionable crowd stayed away. Why ? 
No one knows why. **The women would not come," 
says the promoter, with a shrug. "There is no account- 
ing for the whims of the women. There was every- 
thing to attract them and they would not come, — 
c'etait finis." 

Cafes by the score have had this same history, or have 
had a brief brilliant success and a failure sudden and 
complete. There was Cubats on the Champs Elysees, 
superbly installed in a house where had lived the mis- 
tress of Louis Napoleon. For a little while everyone 
went to Cubats. The place had enormous success, and 
then, all of a sudden, the crowd stopped going. Cubats 
did not exist. Perhaps the diners grew tired of being 
robbed. Parisians of the high-living class do not object 
to spending money. It is their metier, but the prices 



THE FINE ART OF DINING 107 

at Cubats were monumental and the proprietor in other 
and less humdrum times would have been a bold buc- 
caneer or a bandit chief. One night a diner ordered 
a melon with his dinner. The waiter reported that 
melons were out of season. The patron growled, the 
waiter murmured that he would call Monsieur. Mon- 
sieur came, bland, imperturbable, and listened to the 
growling. 

M'sieu wished absolutely to have a melon ? But 
certainly. One could get it. It would be for after 
the dinner instead of before the dinner, however. That 
would be satisfactory ? 

The diner, mollified, signified his willingness to eat 
his melon after his sweet, and when the appointed time 
arrived, the melon arrived with it. Later, the bill 
arrived in its turn. One item read: "Melon — 250 
francs." There was a storm and the matter went to 
the courts, but the restaurateur remained imperturbable. 
The melon was expensive — he admitted as much to 
the judge sorrowfully — but M'sieu would have it. 
When one orders horses and carriage and sends a special 
messenger post-haste through the night for many miles 
in order to gratify a patron's whim, one must be paid 
for one's trouble. The judge appreciated the point 
and the bill was paid, — but in time Cubats closed its 
doors. 

Outside of Paris there are many restaurants to which 
Parisians drive or motor for dinner when they are tired 
of the Bois, yet want to escape from city walls. The 
Reservoir at Versailles, and the Henri Quatre at St. 



io8 IN VANITY FAIR 

Germain, are the oldest, the most famous of the list, 
and though for a time their prestige declined in so far 
as the truly fashionable diners were concerned, both 
have taken on new popularity since the automobile 
brought about a mania for dining out of town. At the 
Reservoir one is in the midst of historic associations. 
The place, with its decorations and furnishings in 
pure Louis XVI style, was already famous when Marie 
Antomette played at farming in the Petit Trianon, near 
by. The place has seen many notable dinners, 
harboured many illustrious personages, and its ancient 
grandeur clings about it like a garment, though it caters 
now to the most mixed and modern of fashionable 
crowds. 

Historic memories swarm thickly about the Henri 
Quatre too. Louis the XIV was born in the building 
which is now a restaurant, and a cradle marks the cafe 
silver. From the terrace and the windows one looks 
over miles of fertile valley, and at the tables one finds, 
save upon Sunday, a particularly chic crowd. On 
Sunday the bourgeoisie invade the place, but during the 
week it is very much the thing to run out to the Henri 
Quatre for luncheon or dinner. 

It is a pity le Roi galant cannot come back to his 
own for at least one summer night. He had ever an 
eye for a pretty woman, and it would warm even his 
ghost to watch the women who flutter from automobile 
or carriage to the pavilion that bears his name. He 
would smile approval too at the woman of the golf or 
tennis costume, for this hot-headed Henry was catholic 



THE FINE ART OF DINING 109 

In his tastes. Perhaps it is the tolerance of his spirit 
that has made possible at the Henri Quatre what would 
be shocking at the Bellevue, where the Pompadour is 
presiding genius. La Grande Marquise was not a 
marvel of morality, but upon etiquette she stood firm. 
One must be in grande toilette for Bellevue, but for the 
Henri Quatre — that is as one chooses. 

Pretty women in ravishing toilettes flock to the tables 
of the glass-enclosed verandahs; but, side by side with 
the woman of the trailing chiffon and lace, of the won- 
derful driving cloak, of the picture hat, is the woman 
who has been playing golf or tennis at some one of the 
clubs round about St. Germain. The chances are that, 
being French, she has not played violently enough to 
disarrange her costume. It is as immaculate, as perfect 
in its way as the dinner toilette of the woman who has 
driven out from town, but she adores le sport, and she 
chatters about it enthusiastically over her truflBies and 
champagne, looking, the while, like a Dresden china 
image of a golf girl. 

High above the bank of the Seine at Meudon stands 
the Bellevue, a restaurant de luxe, which was built only 
a few years ago, and has had a considerable vogue, but 
has suffered since the day of the automobile arrived, 
because it is hardly far enough from Paris to afford a 
good motor spin, though too far to be as convenient as 
the restaurants of the Bois. 

The Pompadour once had a villa where the picturesque 
white building now stands far above the river and over- 
looking all the country round, and in point of elegance 



no IN VANITY FAIR 

the modern belles who dine on the terrace or in the 
white arched dining-rooms live up to the traditions of 
the place where the Grande Marquise held butterfly 
court; for one dons one's smartest frock for Bellevue. 
From the river a funicular leads up to the broad 
terraces in front of the Pavilion. Behind the res- 
taurant the wooded hill climbs on up toward the sky, 
and on its top Flammarion's observatory is perched. 
There is a little hotel in the woods, an unimportant 
place, where Bellevue parties may stay over night if 
they do not care to go back to the city after a late dinner 
or supper, — and it is not always easy to get back to 
town if one has come out to Bellevue in plebeian fashion 
by train or boat, and lingered late in defiance of boat 
and railway time-tables. A party of Americans were 
stranded that way one night last summer. No train, 
no boat, — and no knowledge of the little hotel in the 
woods. No carriage to be had, unless les messieurs 
could wait indefinitely. Les messieurs, being New 
Yorkers, were not fond of waiting. They tucked the mes- 
dames under their arms, and went out to reconnoitre. 
In the court stood a magnificent big touring-car, in 
charge of a liveried and stately chauffeur. One of the 
Americans boldly approached the imposing personage. 

"My man," he said in French that was intelligible if 
scarcely academic, "I want you to take us into town." 

The Frenchman stared in amazement. 

"But, Monsieur, this is a private automobile. M. 
le baron is having supper in there with — eh bien, with 
a lady." 



THE FINE ART OF DINING in 

"Exactly," said the man from New York. "But 
you are going to take us to town. The baron will never 
know you're gone. I saw the lady." 

The chauffeur lapsed into what Mark Twain would 
call "a profound French calm." He wrung his hands 
and rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders and 
called the gods to witness that the baron would eat him 
alive if he dared to consider such a proposition. 

The man from New York listened with interest; and, 
when the conversationalist paused for breath, ran his 
hand into his pocket and brought forth something that 
clinked musically. 

"It's worth one hundred francs to me to go to town 
in the baron's car," he said. 

The chauffeur looked at the open hand, at the car, 
at the restaurant door. His conscience struggled within 
him and was silenced. 

"Voyons, M'sieu, we will consider." He tiptoed to 
a window, looked into the dining-room, and returned 
with the air of a comic opera conspirator. 

"C'est bien, M'sieu. They arrive at the salad. 
There is always the dessert, the coffee, the cigar, the 
liqueur. One can do it, but it is to be hoped that M'sieu 
and his friends do not object to speed." 

That was a wild ride to Paris, — up hill and down, at 
top speed, with never a slackening for corners or for foot 
passengers. The Americans were dropped where they 
could take cabs and the hundred francs changed hands. 

"Much obliged. Good luck to you," said the man 
from New York. 



112 IN VANITY FAIR 

The chauffeur consulted his watch. ** Provided 
always that they have not quarrelled," he murmured 
anxiously — and the machine shot away into the night. 

Down in the heart of Paris, the Cafe de Paris, the 
Cafe Paillard, and the Ritz are the restaurants in which 
one may best study purple and fine linen. There are 
other cafes famed for cuisine and cellars, but my Lady 
of the Chiffons finds them dull, and in the creed of a 
Parisienne dulness heads the list of mortal sins. 

Americans and English are the mainstay of the Ritz, 
save during the tea hour, when the crowd becomes 
cosmopolitan. At the Cafe Paillard one finds the diners 
of the Madrid a clique aristocratic, mondain, and chiefly 
French. The Cafe de Paris repeats the story of Ar- 
menonville, though without the picturesque woodland 
setting and the attractive al fresco features. The two 
cafes have the same clientele, the same atmosphere, — 
even the same proprietor. He is a subject for con- 
gratulation, this proprietor. The famous old Cafe 
Foyot, under the shadow of the Luxembourg, is his 
too, and the Cafe de Paris of Trouville, and the Helder 
at Nice, — all, save the Foyot, tremendously popular 
with the crowd vowed to extravagance and folly, and, 
as a result of that popularity, all phenomenally success- 
ful from a financial point of view. The Foyot also has 
a success, but of a different kind. 

Naturally, the man who manages these restaurants 
is rich. His private establishments are handsome, he 
spends money lavishly, but — and here is the secret of 
his success — he is first of all a restaurateur, eternally 



THE FINE ART OF DINING 113 

vigilant, neglecting no detail, proud of his metier, glory- 
ing in his triumphs. He could buy, twice over, many 
of his patrons, yet one v^ill see him moving about among 
his hurrying waiters, suggesting, prompting, reprimand- 
ing, seeing all things, adjusting all difficulties, pouring 
oil on all troubled waters. 

He stops for a moment beside an old patron. 

**Ah, Comte X , bon soir." 

His eyes rest upon the fish that has been placed before 
the count, and his face clouds. A motion of his hand 
brings an alarmed waiter. 

"You serve the sole so, to Monsieur le Comte ? You 
think perhaps that the sole au vin blanc should have 
that air ? Take it away." 

"Pardon, M'sieu. You understand, — a moment 
more or less and a sauce is spoiled. I am grieved that 
you should wait, but one dines well or one has not dined , 
at all. In a moment you shall have a fish that will be 
as it should be. You have always the same burgundy, 
yes ? I, too, am of your opinion. It is the best in 
our cellars." 

He hurries away, soft-stepping, alert, diplomatic, 
napkin over arm, bowing deferentially here and there. 
A millionaire they say — but certainly a restaurant- 
keeper who knows his business, such a one as France 
can produce and Paris can appreciate. 

There is another restaurateur in Paris whose name 
should not be left out of any discussion of Parisian 
dining. A few years ago he would have had no right 
to a place in this frivolous chapter, for though his 



114 IN VANITY FAIR 

restaurant was famous it was not smart. The gourmet 
might dine there — or rather lunch there — but the 
woman of fashion never found her way down to the 
Httle old building whose battered sign of a silver tower 
proclaimed that here was the Tour d'Argent, the cafe 
over which presided the inimitable Frederic, Roi des 
Canards, last of the old school of French cooks and 
hosts. 

Even now the modish Parisienne does not go to 
the Tour d'Argent, but Americans have taken up the 
old cafe, and pretty women and elegant frocks are now 
no strangers in the Tour d'Argent, though one could 
not call the place fashionable. 

The wine merchants of the Halles des Vins could 
swear that, fine frocks or no fine frocks, Frederic de- 
serves a place in any chapter devoted to the fine art of 
dining; for Frederic belongs to a school of cooking 
which made the cuisine a fine art, and if the rooms of 
the little tavern down behind the morgue offer no appeal 
to the senses in the form of music and flowers and jewels 
and chiffons, they offer eating and drinking good enough 
to offset many omissions. 

The Tour d'Argent has been a restaurant for three 
hundred years, and looking out from its windows over 
the cite patrons have been able to see most of the great 
events of Paris taking place, but M. Frederic is con- 
siderablv less old than his cafe. 

The Halles des Vins stand only a little way below 
the restaurant, and the wine merchants learned to go 
to Frederic's for luncheon. They were a high-living, 



THE FINE ART OF DINING 115 

exacting group of gourmets, patrons to appreciate good 
cooking and put a cook upon his mettle. Incidentally 
they knew a thing or two about wines, and through 
their friendly advice and favour the cellars of Frederic 
became, in the opinion of many connoisseurs, the best 
in Paris. 

Others beside the Vvine-merchants found their way 
to the sign of the silver tower. The fame of Frederic 
spread through Paris and beyond. Last year in Nice, 
a New York man asked the chef of a noted hotel to 
prepare for him a "canneton a la presse." "Cook 
it for me just as Frederic does it," said the American. 
The chef shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and shook 
his head. 

"I shall be charmed to cook the duck for Monsieur, 
but to cook it as le Roi des Canards cooks it ? — Non, 
I have not the skill." 

Tribute from a rival is tribute indeed. Frederic is 
King of the Ducks, and he sits alone upon his throne. 

You will probably find the king in the little ante- 
room to his restaurant if you go down to the Tour d'Ar- 
gent early enough to have a talk with its autocrat. There 
in the little ante-room are displayed game, meats, deli- 
cacies, dozens of things a patron might like to order for 
his meal, and there stands Frederic, a typical French 
host, with his long grey frock-coat clinging lovingly to 
his portly body, his side whiskers framing his ruddy, 
beaming face, his napkin or towel over his arm. 

If he has seen you before he will know you. If he 
has seen you twice, you and he are old friends. 



ii6 IN VANITY FAIR 

His face takes on more luminous cheer as he catches 
sight of you, and he bows profoundly, with a dramatic 
flourish of the napkin. 

"Ah, bon soir, M'sieu. Tout va toujours bien ? — 
et Madame ? — et le petit ?" 

He leads you into the restaurant and finds a table for 
you. The important matter of the dinner is settled, 
and then, if you are of the favoured, Frederic will talk to 
you of his art, and you will hear of refinements and 
subtleties of cookery which will make you smile until 
Frederic has proved to you that they are not poetic 
fancy but substantial fact. Your quail, for example, 
must be cooked before a grape-vine fire. Nothing but 
grape-vine will do the trick. Frederic is very positive 
on that point, and if you are skeptic, he may perhaps 
take you out and show you the grape-vine fire. After- 
ward you eat the quail and skepticism melts away into 
unquestioning faith. 

That is only one of the mysteries of Frederic's cuisine. 
The man loves his art, goes to all lengths to achieve the 
results he desires, would rather invent a successful sauce 
than inherit a million, is as proud of his canneton a la 
presse as is a painter or poet of his masterpiece. On 
the whole, a majority of the public would probably prefer 
the masterpiece of Frederic to that of the poet or the 
painter, and in the chef's own mind there would be no 
doubt as to the comparative excellence of poem, picture, 
and duck. 

It takes three ducks to supply one duck to a patron 
at Frederic's. The two extra birds give up their juices 



THE FINE ART OF DINING 117 

for the sauce that is served with the bird — that wonder- 
ful sauce which Frederic makes himself in the double 
brazier or chafing-dish which he sets on a side table 
near the diner. 

It is a treat to watch the making of that sauce, from 
the moment when, after touching a match to the first 
brazier burner. Monsieur daintily takes up some of the 
flame between his forefinger and thumb and deposits it 
upon the other burner, to the final moment when with 
an air of triumph the artist announces his complete 
success. 

It is a treat too to see Frederic come and serve the 
duck. You are not getting your money's worth if he 
does not do it himself. 

And it is a treat, beyond the telling, to eat the duck 
and the sauce which le Roi des Canards has prepared. 

Small wonder that there are smart folk mingled with 
the marchands des vins at the Tour d'Argent nowadays, 
and that the birds of passage flitting through Paris go 
to Frederic's for a dinner or a luncheon. 

Marguery is another of the chefs of the old French 
school, but he has become business man rather than 
chef, as have most of the restaurateurs of Paris. Only 
Frederic devotes himself passionately to his art, lives for 
his cuisine, burns his grape-vine fires, and makes a 
religious rite of preparing his sauces. 

He is not only Roi des Canards, but the last of a 
royal line. 



CHAPTER VII 

ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT WITH MADAME 

A SLIGHT hush falls upon the fashionable Parisian 
world after Grand Prix has rung down the curtain upon 
the Paris season The elegantes pause to draw breath 
before plunging into the swirling tide of the summer 
circuit, but the breathing time is short. A few leisurely 
days, a few final visits to dressmakers and milliners, a 
closing of town houses, and then, ho for Trouville. 

There are many popular resorts on the Normandy 
coast, but Trouville is queen of them all in so far as 
smart Parisian society is concerned. Madame follows 
the races and is in evidence at every fashionable racing 
event of the Normandy circuit, from the opening at 
Caen to the close at Ostend — or at least to the last of 
the French courses at Dieppe; but she is merely a bird 
of passage at the shifting rendezvous. Her summer nest 
is at Trouville-Deauville. 

They are practically one resort, these two places of 
hyphenated association. Familiars even shorten the 
name to Trou-Deauville; but the little ferry that crosses 
the river Tuch between the two towns, and is heavily 
freighted with holiday-making folk from morning until 
night, traverses a gulf wider than the casual traveller 

ii8 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 119 

would imagine. Trouville has the Casino, the prome- 
nade des planches, the Rue de Paris, the famous Hotel 
de Paris; but Deauville has the race course, the hyper- 
swell club, the villas of the ultra-chic. All the world is 
eligible to the pleasures of Trouville — or at least such 
share of the world as has the price at which Trouville 
pleasures are rated — but Deauville is for the favoured 
few, for the crowd of Puteaux and la Boulie, and the 
Polo Club of the Bois. The races draw the human 
potpourri of Trouville across the ferry; but after the 
races, the ferry carries the crowd back, while the social 
elect move on to the exclusive club grounds for polo or 
tennis or tea. A small distinction when put into mere 
words, but a mighty matter as viewed by the Parisienne, 
and there are many women whose whole ambition but 
compasses the crossing of that expressive hyphen in 
Trouville-Deauville. 

The seashore season opens on the first of July, and 
from that time on to the first of September the villas 
and hotels of Trou-Deauville are filled with the most 
fashionable folk of Europe, though there is much 
skurrying about the coast in automobile, coach, or train, 
and constant interchange of social courtesies with the 
owners of villas in neighbouring resorts. The Nor- 
mandy shore line is crov/ded with picturesque little 
villages of more or less ancient fame and more or less 
fashionable repute, and there are Parisians who dehb- 
erately choose villas at these smaller resorts, even when 
they might have the entree at Deauville, did they elect 
to join the crowd there. Life at the little place is better 



120 IN VANITY FAIR 

for the children than life at Trouville, and it is possible 
for the elders to relax slightly in the quieter atmosphere, 
though they can easily find feverish gaiety within motor- 
ing distance when they care to go in search of it. 

They are charming, these little Normandy towns, but 
it would be difficult for a town not to be charming on 
the Normandy coast. To be sure the average seashore 
villa of France is a blot on the landscape, but there are 
exceptions to the rule, — quaint modern houses of true 
Norman type, — and there are, too, old timbered farm- 
houses and picturesque chateaux which have been 
invaded by the tide of Parisian modernity. Even the 
ugliest of the villas is likely to have a delightful little 
garden, and over many of the architectural horrors 
charitable roses clamber riotously, softening the hideous 
outlines and bringing the dissonant notes into harmony 
with the melody round about. Green fields and fruitful 
orchards run down to meet the sea, and smooth white 
poplar-fringed roads that are the joy of the automobilist 
run away in every direction through the smiling fertile 
country. Broad shining beaches stretch along beside 
the sunlit waves and are dotted with gay striped tents 
under which children play in the sand and grown-ups 
idle away the hours. Perhaps a mediaeval church and 
a quaint market-place form a background for the summer 
settlement, and sturdy Norman fisher folk come and go 
among the holiday aliens. 

Yes, they are charming, these little places, and they 
are, too, more exclusively French than most of the larger 
resorts, — but not more French than Trouville. Nothing 




O 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 121 

could be more French than Trouville. Dieppe has a 
tremendous American, English, Austrian, German, 
Russian contingent that elbows the French element; 
Boulogne is given over largely to bank-hoHday crowds 
from England; Ostend is more cosmopolitan than 
French; but Trouville is of the French Frenchy, and to 
know Trouville is to know the Parisienne in her gayest 
summer role. 

A popular French seashore resort must be seen to be 
appreciated, and no American whose theories of seaside 
customs is limited to an acquaintance with the shore 
resorts of Jersey, Long Island, Massachusetts, etc., can 
have the slightest conception of seaside life in a French 
translation. There is, in the latter, a spice, a colour, an 
audacity, lacking in the Anglo-Saxon version. An Eng- 
lish or American imitation of Trouville would be hope- 
lessly vulgar, but Trouville — well, it is Trouville. It 
is all bubble, sparkle, brilliancy, extravagance, folly. 
It is Paris with an added laissez aller, Paris set to a new 
tune. There is much to shock the sober-minded as 
there is in Paris, but the sober-minded should not go to 
Trouville. It is the refuge of the light-hearted, the 
buoyant, the volatile; and soberness has no place in its 
scheme. What would electrify Newport, Bar Harbor, 
even Narragansett Pier, will not create even a ripple of 
excitement at Trouville. Someone has said that the 
difference between smart society in New York and in 
Paris is the difference between the immoral and the 
unmoral. French seashore life in its most exagger- 
ated phase is distinctly unmoral, but like Paris Hfe, it 



122 IN VANITY FAIR 

is also distinctly picturesque. The most shocking thing 
about Gallic impropriety is the fact that it fails to 
shock. 

But when one talks of morals, one is taking Trouville 
seriously, and to take Trouville seriously is altogether 
out of the question. It is all froth and effervescence, all 
laughter and irresponsibility. Beau monde, bourgeoisie, 
actresses, dressmakers, milliners, cocottes, titled folk 
and millionaires from all over the world, gamblers, 
racing touts, English polo players, American yacht 
owners — all jostle each other on the promenade, in 
the Casino, at the Hotel de Paris; for the exclusive set 
of Deauville does not cling to its own select haunts but 
crosses the ferry often in search of diversion less monot- 
onously comme il faut. 

The Rue de Paris is the great meeting-place for this 
class during the morning hours, and on a bright August 
morning one may find the most noted social celebrities 
of Europe grouped before the doors of the little shops 
that line the crooked street. 

The jewellers and dressmakers of Paris have branch 
establishments here, and around their thresholds flutter 
the women who are the best patrons of those Paris 
tradesfolk, met to flirt and gossip and show in their 
frocks and jewels what may be achieved with the assist- 
ance of the firms whose names are written large above 
the open doors. It is called La Potiniere, the gossip 
rendezvous, this little Rue de Paris, and there is gossip 
enough abroad there on any morning to justify the name. 
There is so much excuse for gossip at Trouville. 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 123 

Eleven o'clock is the magic hour that really opens the 
ball at Trouville. Before that, there may possibly have 
been a private pigeon shoot, but that calls out only a 
small clique and takes in one of the most exclusive sets 
of Europe. No entrance here for the rank and file even 
of the fashionable world, and no open sesame for v^omen 
v^hom the haughty dames of the French aristocracy do 
not put upon their visiting list. If Monsieur and 
Madame appear together anywhere at Trouville it is 
likely to be at the pigeon shoot. 

But it is at eleven that the doors of the villas and 
hotels fly open. Out flock all of the somebodies and a 
choice assortment of nobodies, and every path to the 
beach is filled with the gay throng. Not that all of the 
Trouville world takes a dip in the surf. No indeed, — 
the truly smart folk scorn sea bathing, but they go to 
the beach to meet each other, to watch the throng, to 
promenade, to show their pretty morning frocks, to put 
in the time until dejeuner, and their decorative value in 
the bathing hour scene is tremendous. 

Those women who do intend to go into the water, or 
to wear fetching bathing costumes at a safe distance 
from the waves, dress in their own rooms, if they live 
anywhere near the beach, and issue cloaked, hatted, and 
followed by maids. The maid is an essential feature of 
the scenic effect. She carries anything that may be 
needed, and she gives cachet to her mistress. There is 
a theory, too, that she represents the proprieties. It is 
quite improper to go to the beach without a maid, and so 
the Parisienne, no matter how lurid her reputation nor 



124 IN VANITY FAIR 

how startling her attire, goes beachward with her maid 
trotting demurely at her heels. 

The bathing at Trouville is not particularly pictur- 
esque, though much imaginative description of its 
startling features has been written, and conditions at the 
resort seem favourable for a spectacular display of sea 
nymphs. Trouville is the summer paradise of Parisian 
cocottes, and the average Parisian cocotte is not as a 
rule strikingly averse to conspicuous roles; but Narra- 
gansett Pier can show, during one fine summer day, 
more audacious bathing costumes than will be seen 
at Trouville in a week; and though little chorus girls 
up from Paris for a holiday may tumble about in the 
waves, among a crowd of bathers that but repeats the 
bathing types familiar the world over, the notorious 
**filles" do not go into the water any more than do the 
great ladies of Deauville. 

There are some piquant and attractive bathing cos- 
tumes worn on the sands by women who do not go in 
for serious bathing, but the Trouville show at the 
bathing hour is under the gay striped tents or on the 
promenade, where women in Paris frocks and hats chat 
lightly with men in informal summer attire, and where 
the grande dame of the Faubourg St. Germain touches 
elbows with the cocotte of the Boulevards. 

After the bathing hour the crowd scatters again to 
the hotels and villas, and though in the afternoon there 
is an immense and amusing crowd on the promenade, 
the very smart set is not seen there again until the next 
morning. 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 125 

It is so very busy, this smart set. The days are not 
long enough for the goings and comings that must be 
crowded into them. The fashionable women make 
elaboraet toilettes for dejeuner at cafe or club or villa, 
and after the dejeuner they pour out upon the terraces, 
arrayed in their most ravishing costumes. Automobiles, 
coaches, smart traps of all kinds, are in waiting. Madame 
enters the one that is to have the honour of harbouring 
her mousseline and silk and lace, lifts her exquisite 
sunshade, scatters sniiles and gay jests among her 
friends, and is off to the races. 

Not even at Auteuil, Chantilly, or the Grand Prix can 
one see more superb and extravagant costuming than in 
the Tribune or the pesage at Trouville. The crowd is 
less mixed than at the Paris races and there is more 
uniform elegance of dress, while the beautiful pesage 
with its velvety turf, its masses of bloom, its shaded 
paths, offers the most delightful of settings in which to 
display the latest creation of Paquin, or a daring but 
successful innovation from Reboux. 

The club of Deauville provides a scenic arrangement 
even more perfectly adapted to the great show of frocks 
and mondaines, than is the pesage, and here is the centre 
of that exclusive social life of which the outsider can form 
but a vague idea, though the other side of Trouville may 
afford him most enjoyable entertainment. The golf 
course of the club is said to be the finest on the continent, 
the tennis courts are always full, polo is played there by 
the crack players of all Europe, and there is never a time 
when there is not something amusing on the club tapis. 



126 IN VANITY FAIR 

Perhaps, instead of races or club events, a garden party 
at one of the Deauville villas claims the fashionables. 
Or perhaps the garden party is in some nearby resort 
such as Houlgate or Villers, and the clean v^hite road 
leading to the rendezvous is crowded with automobiles 
and traps as the appointed hour approaches. The 
automobile has added much to the gaiety of the Nor- 
mandy season. It has brought the resorts closer to- 
gether, has made intimate social intercourse between 
them more possible. For great social events, the clans 
gather from every direction, coming even from far-away 
spas and chateaux. Wherever the races are in prog- 
ress, there a host of automobiles makes its appearance, 
each machine laden with a jolly party from some one 
of the innumerable Normandy resorts. There is much 
motoring, too, in quest of luncheon or dinner. Madame 
and her friends forsake the Parisian cuisine of the Trou- 
ville hotel and motor merrily along the wonderful road 
to Caen, where in one of the quaint old restaurants that 
huddle near the market-place, one may have the best of 
Norman cooking and enjoy — or at least sample — 
one of the tripe dinners for which the restaurant is 
famed. A vulgar dish, tripe — but not tripe a la mode 
de Caen. The chef will tell you proudly that there 
are fifty Norman ways of cooking tripe, each more 
masterly than the other, and he will prove to you that 
the ordinary domestic tripe is to the tripe of Caen as 
the fried egg of the Bowery restaurant to the aeufs sur 
le plat of the Cafe Foyot, — or to the omelette of 
Madame Poulard. 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 127 

The omelette of Madame Poulard is another excuse 
for a motor pilgrimage from Trouville. One goes all 
the way to Mont St. Michel for it, but the run is a beau- 
tiful one and the omelette would be well worth even 
a journey over a corduroy road. Rural Normandy 
and Brittany still make pilgrimages to the shrine of 
the Archangel St. Michel, but even the pious pilgrims 
make their obeisance to the famous om.elette as well 
as to the worthy saint, and the motor parties from Trou- 
ville know more about omelette than shrine. They 
are not profoundly pious, ces gens la, but they see the 
beauty of the sacred mountain where it towers between 
sea and sky, and they appreciate the omelette which 
Madame, with due ceremony, makes in a great casserole 
over the glowing logs in her cavernous fireplace. 

And then there is Dives, with its ancient hostellerie 
Guillaume le Conquerant, whose praises have been 
sung so often and so eloquently that even a mere men- 
tion of its charms seems rank plagiarism. All the 
Trouville crowd motors over to Dives for luncheon or 
for dinner, and divides the tables with other motor 
parties from Paris and from all the country round; for 
it is famous, this inn of William the Conqueror, the 
most picturesque and popular of the provincial taverns 
of France. 

The great WiUiam himself saw to the building of the 
inn when he chose Dives as the most convenient place 
in which to build the boats needed for his little excur- 
sion to England; and since that far day a multitude of 
famous personages has found shelter there, though 



128 . IN VANITY FAIR 

the place has not always been used for an inn. Kings 
and queens of France have slept under the low roof, 
Madame de Sevigne and other great ladies of her day 
dined in the feudal dining-room and chatted in the 
Salle des Marmousets. 

But the rooms were not, in Madame de Sevigne's 
time, what they are now. Monsieur Paul has made 
of his old Norman inn a treasure-house. He is artist, 
antiquary, and inn-keeper, this quiet M. Le Remois, 
and his inn is his hobby as collecting is his passion. 
He has ransacked the hidden places of Europe for rare 
and wonderful things that would add beauty and in- 
terest to the three low-raftered rooms in which he serves 
private dinners and luncheons and suppers, and his 
collection has overflowed into every corner of the inn. 
Fourteenth-century glass gleams like jewel mosaic in 
some of the windows; marvellous old tapestries, rare 
antique carvings, embroideries, brasses, ivories, laces, 
porcelains are everywhere, yet all are disposed with an 
eye to artistic efi^ect and the result is a harmonious 
interior, not a museum jumble of curios. Even in the 
kitchen, antiquity holds sway; the carved cupboards and 
walls are rich in old Normandy brasses and in porce- 
lains and pottery that would drive a collector wild with 
covetousness. Up in the sleeping-rooms that open from 
a vine-embowered gallery are old carved bedsteads 
and presses and dressing-tables, quaint chintzes, ewers 
and basins and bric-a-brac and candelabra of a far- 
away time. They are named for illustrious visitors 
who have slept in them, these chambers along the 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 129 

rambling galleries. One, with seventeenth-century co- 
quetry, is sacred to Madame de Sevigne. Another 
bears the name of Dumas; for Dumas and all the other 
famous writers, artists, bohemians of France have at 
one time or another frequented the inn at Dives. From 
the galleries one looks down upon a courtyard sur- 
rounded by the timbered, gable-roofed, many-winged 
old building. It Is all abloom with flowers, this court. 
Doves flutter and coo about the low eaves and the niches 
in which stand queer, stiff*, archaic images. Flamingoes 
and herons and peacocks pick their way over the cobble- 
stones. Cockatoos swing from mullioned windows. 

And into this place of mediaeval memories come the 
worldly moderns of Trouville and Paris. They flutter 
about the courtyard scattering the doves, and rivalling 
the peacocks and flamingoes in brilliance of plumage. 
They make their toilettes In the low-ceilinged rooms 
off* the vine-draped galleries, they lunch and dine In the 
Salle des Marmousets, or the Chambre de la Pucelle, 
among the marvellous carvings and tapestries and 
bibelots. 

An American millionaire once off*ered M. Paul five 
hundred thousand dollars for the feudal dining-room 
just as it stood, woodwork, fireplace, glass, furnishings 
and all. Doubtless he had visions of sensational New 
York dinners framed in such setting, but the dream 
was a vain one. Sell a part of the Inn ? M. Paul would 
sell as readily his head or heart, but millionaires do not 
always understand the artist temperament. 

The meals served In the treasure rooms are worthy 



130 IN VANITY FAIR 

of their setting, for the artist is a prince of inn-keepers 
as well as a connoisseur of parts; and some of his dishes 
have long been the joy of Parisian epicures and the 
despair of Parisian chefs. There, for example, is his 
poulet vallee d'Auge. One sees the name upon Parisian 
menus now, but one tastes the real thing only in the 
dining-rooms of the old inn at Dives. Here is a lunch- 
eon menu prepared for a motor party from Trouville, 
a menu not too long, but calculated to call up to the 
gourmet who has lunched in the Salle des Marmousets 
memories of past delights. 

Potage Dives. 

Melon. 

Sole a la Normande. 

Poulets a la vallee d'Auge. 

Aloyau Hastings. 

Peches flambees a la Guillaume le Conquerant. 

Gallette. 

Fruits. 

Oh, that fish sauce, those little chickens cooked in 
fresh cream, those peaches flavoured with other fruits 
and dropped in raspberry syrup and brandy — all eaten 
from a genuine fifteenth-century carved table in a room 
that might serve for a curio collector's dream of heaven! 
Verily the epicureans of Trouville and Paris should 
mention M. Le Remois in their prayers. 

A sound all modern comes in through the Gothic 
doorway and wakens the group around the fifteenth- 
century tables from their dream of bliss. The car is 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 131 

waiting in the courtyard and driving the cockatoos to 
hysteria. There is a hasty donning of dust-coats, a 
climbing into the huge touring-car, an exchange of 
compliments with M. Paul, a waving of hands, and 
then the long white road through a green, green land, 
and Trouville in time for polo and dinner and the 
Casino. 

Such excursions are now essential features of the 
seashore life. Trouville is motor-mad as is Paris, 
and last season there was not half enough garage room 
to accommodate the crowd. At every hour of the 
day great machines dash up to the hotels and unload 
well-known men and women from Hamburg, from 
Carlsbad, from Vichy, from Vienna, from Berlin, from 
Brittany, from Paris, from anywhere and everywhere. 
The King of Greece^ arrives at the Hotel Paris in a 
Mercedes, the Shah of Persia spins bUthely up to the 
Casino in a Panhard, a Russian Princess steers her 
motor into the narrow winding way of the Rue de Paris 
and brings it up with quick turn before Doucet's pop- 
ular corner or in front of the fashionable patisserie. 
An English Duke has run up from Boulogne in his 
Daimler, the American Millionaire has made sixty 
miles an hour from Paris in his Packard, in order to 
meet his yacht in the bay of Deauville. It is an auto- 
mobile show of the finest, the grande semaine at Trou- 
ville, and, later, automobile week at Ostend brings 
together a host of cars even more cosmopolitan, just 
as it brings together a crowd of folk still more cosmo- 
politan, than that of Trouville. 



132 IN VANITY FAIR 

Yachting, too, is an important feature of Trouville 
life, and the bay is always well filled with sleek sea-going 
craft during grand semaine. Few of the very large 
yachts are French, but a fleet of beautiful small yachts 
has sailed up the Seine from Melun which is the anchor- 
age for the Yacht Club of France, and there are a few 
imposing yachts flying the French colours. Trim English 
and American yachts by the dozen anchor off the Trou- 
ville shore for the great week, and there is a constant 
going and coming between boats and shore, a perpetual 
interchange of courtesies between the smart folk of 
villas and hotels, and the yachting visitors. Sometimes 
it is not the villa set that lunches and dines aboard the 
yacht. There are hilarious doings out there on the sea, 
when certain parties from the Hotel de Paris are enter- 
tained, but those who hear tales of these doings when 
they stroll through la Potiniere only shrug their shoulders. 
What can one expect when the season at Trou-Deauville, 
according to the traditional phrase, "bat son plein" ? 

Evening at Trouville means an elaborate dinner at 
one of the private villas or hotels, and an hour or two 
at the Casino, or perhaps some private social function 
following in the wake of a dinner — dancing, bridge, 
music, theatricals. The Hotel de Paris is the public 
dining-place par excellence, the best vantage-ground 
from which to watch the passing show, but it is no easy 
matter to secure a table at the Hotel de Paris during the 
height of the season. The most extravagant and modish 
part of the Trouville crowd — aside from the occupants 
of the handsomest villas — is quartered at the Hotel de 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 133 

Paris. A crowd quite as swell but more inclined to 
quiet goes to the Grand Hotel de Deauville, but rooms 
at this hotel are all taken months in advance by folk 
belonging to the Deauville set. The Hotel de Paris 
rooms are reserved far in advance, too, but by a clientele 
less exclusive. Money is the one essential at the Hotel 
de Paris, but one must have plenty of that. There are 
always famous mondaines, millionaires, royal personages, 
staying at the Paris; but there, too, one finds the Parisian 
demi-mondaine, the noted jockey, the great actress, the 
wealthy tourist, and the worthy bourgeois of Paris will 
often save thriftily all year in order that he may afford 
a week at the Paris during the season. It is chic to stay 
at the Paris, and it is vastly amusing. Incidentally it is, 
as has been hinted, expensive. To have the humblest 
and scrappiest of rooms one must pay at least six dollars 
a day, and the prices of suites run up into appalling 
sums. Restaurant prices, too, are monumental and tips 
are no small item. The waiter who serves one is the 
most ingratiating, the most efficient, the most knowing of 
his kind, but if one does not give the suave Shylock the 
full ten per cent of his bill, which is the letter of his bond, 
it will be much better not to come back again. They 
have retentive memories, those waiters; they are used to 
lavish generosity — and tables are always at a premium. 
It is practically impossible to secure a table for dinner 
without first enlisting the head waiter's sympathy by a 
discreet tip of from five to fifty francs, and a thousand 
francs has been paid for a table during grande semaine. 
The cuisine is not remarkable — not so good, for instance, 



134 IN VANITY FAIR 

as that of the Paris Cafe de Paris, which is under the 
same management; but much beside food goes to make 
up one's money's worth when the coveted table has at 
last been obtained, and there are few things more amusing 
to a student of men, women, and things than to sit in 
some corner of the cafe and watch the world go by. 
To thoroughly appreciate the show one should have, 
across the table, a friend who is versed in the gossip of 
the European capitals, and who can name the diners and 
tell their stories; but even the stranger within the gates 
can get a vast amount of entertainment out of the 
heterogeneous crowd, the amazing types, the beautiful 
clothes, the superb jewels, and many of the stories are 
written so plainly that he who runs may read. 

After dinner the crowd drifts into the great Casino 
and now for a certain part of the idlers begins the serious 
business of the day. It is the custom to say that there 
is no high play in France to-day and that the great days 
of gambling are over, but every year folk go away from 
Trouville who could furnish circumstantial evidence to 
refute that theory. Play is more guarded than it once 
was. The gambling does not jump at the eyes. On 
the first floor of the Casino near the music a few modest 
tables of petits chevaux attract a crowd of players whose 
heaviest plunging is but a matter of a few francs, and 
many transient visitors go away thinking that this outfit 
represents the gambling of Trouville; but habitues of the 
place know better than that. Up on the second floor 
there are trente et quarante and baccarat, but even here 
the limit is not high. Many women surround the tables 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 135 

here, and women make up a large percentage of the crowd 
admitted to the tables of the third floor, where play runs 
high and admittance is not altogether easy to obtain; 
but on the fourth floor are tables from which women are 
barred and to which only the men accustomed to play 
for very high stakes are welcomed. Here is the inner- 
most circle of the Trouville gambling Inferno, and here 
are found men whose very names ooze money. Here 
are found, too, men who have no colossal fortunes 
behind them, but who can play high because they are 
willing to risk all they have. A Rothschild, a Vanderbilt, 
a Menier, may rub shoulders at the tables, but they will 
perhaps have an actor, a restaurant proprietor, and a 
great dressmaker for vis-a-vis, and no one is playing for 
less than one thousand dollars a point. Last season an 
American actor was one of the heavy losers in this fourth- 
floor room, but a theatrical manager evened things up 
by cashing in a goodly heap of counters representing 
ten thousand dollars each at the end of a spectacular 
evening's play in which several of the wealthiest men of 
Europe took a hand. Men have been beggared at these 
tables. One prominent racing man lost his stables down 
to the last horse and bridle in an evening of play. A 
famous English yacht changed hands as a result of an 
hour at baccarat. Some of those who are knowing in 
such matters contend that the heaviest gambling in the 
world to-day goes on in the Trouville Casino during 
grande semaine, but one gives that statement for what 
it is worth, and authentic gambling statistics are not 
easy to obtain. 



136 IN VANITY FAIR 

In order to cover the gambling, the Casino ranks as a 
club, though everybody gets in — at least on the first 
floor. While fortunes are changing hands overhead, 
down here all is light and laughter and mirth. There is 
no drinking, but that does not trouble thirsty folk for 
there is first aid near at hand in the Cafe de Paris; and 
dinner is still a recent memory. The music is always 
good and there is dancing for those who want it. Perhaps 
some popular chanteuse or dancer from Paris is a feature 
of the evening entertainment, or there may be a costume 
ball or an effective cotillon. The best theatrical com- 
panies of Paris play in the little theatre, and always there 
are the petits chevaux to offer amusement of a mildly 
exciting sort. 

All goes merrily until eleven o'clock, then the crowd 
pours out into the night, the doors close, the lights go 
out, and the great building stands dark and grim until 
morning. The board walk is thronged for a time with 
late strollers, but it is a poor imitation of Atlantic City's 
pride, this narrow board walk stretching from the Hotel 
de Paris to the Rochers Noirs. Only Ostend can offer 
a board walk that appeals to Americans as something 
approaching the real thing. 

The strollers melt away from the promenade, the 
cafes empty, and at a fairly respectable hour Trouville 
is given over to quiet and night shadow. Late hilarity 
is the exception rather than the rule, but enough gaiety 
is crowded into the hours between eleven a.m. and 
midnight to last the ordinary summer resort for a 
fortnight. 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 137 

Dieppe, of course, echoes certain notes of the Trouville 
season and is as gay in its own way, though it has not 
the fine sparkle of the more Parisian resort nor such an 
exclusively chic villa set as that of Deauville. 

One hears as much English as French in the Hotel 
Royale and the Casino and on the beach, and more 
swell Americans congregate at Dieppe than at any other 
one of the European summer resorts. For the great 
racing week crowds flock in, as at Trouville, from all 
the coast and inland resorts, and in at least one feature 
the Dieppe races surpass any others of the seashore 
circuit. No finer natural steeple chase course is known 
to the racing world than that at Dieppe, and the steeple 
chase races there are events that make a notable sensa- 
tion even among the many sensations of the Normandy 
season. 

At Ostend it is German that disputes supremacy with 
French, and there are more Austrians and Germans 
there than at any other place on the Jockey Club racing 
circuit, but one misses the familiar Parisian faces, for 
my lady of Deauville does not often go to Ostend even 
for the grande quinzaine of August; and, oddly enough, 
even the **filles de Paris" do not make much of the 
Ostend season. 

The crowd is an immense and interesting one even 
without the French element, and money is spent as 
prodigally as at Trouville — even more prodigally per- 
haps and a trifle more crudely. The Cafe de la Plage 
has the reputation of being one of the most expensive 
places in the world in which one may order a dinner, 



138 IN VANITY FAIR 

the promenade, as has been said, is the best on the coast, 
and the Kursaal is one of the finest in Europe. The 
programme of the days is as crowded as that of Trou- 
ville, and Hfe at Ostend moves at a breathless pace, — 
tennis tournaments, golf tournaments, automobile races, 
motor-boat races, horse races, children's fetes, balls, 
flower festivals, theatre, excursions, dejeuners, dinners, 
yachting — but the list is endless. There is gambling, 
too, at Ostend. Gambling cuts comparatively little 
figure at Dieppe, and the Belgian government has 
muzzled it at Ostend, but here as in Paris one may 
always play at one's private club, and there is a private 
club at Ostend where during the quinzaine play rivals 
that of the famous fourth-floor room at Trouville during 
grande semaine. Many of the same players are in evi- 
dence in both places, but at Ostend entrance to the 
club is a very serious matter. The king of Belgium, 
notorious viveur and most practical sovereign, has been 
extremely firm in regard to Ostend play, and permits it 
only on the guarantee of the club that no scandal shall 
arise to discredit the little Belgian country. Any serious 
gambling fracas would mean an immense forfeit to the 
government, and consequently rigid measures are taken 
to safeguard the play. Anyone desiring admission must 
be introduced by reliable members and his name 
must be posted for three days before he is accepted. 
No exceptions are made, and a rich American who 
presented written introductions from two of the best 
known and wealthiest men of Europe last season was 
promptly turned down. 



ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT 139 

"These gentlemen are members. We know them 
well. Monsieur is doubtless altogether eligible, but our 
rules are our rules. We cannot accept cards of intro- 
duction, but if Monsieur will come here with sponsors 
who are members — " 

Money would not buy the entree. The directors of 
the Ostend Club take no chances. They leave that to 
the gamblers at the club tables. 

With Ostend the season ends, and during the next 
week all of the expresses running to Paris are crowded 
with homing holiday folfc. Dinard and the other Brit- 
tany resorts have been crowded as has Normandy, but 
Dinard is not so popular with the smart Parisienne as is 
Trouville, and money is not spent so lavishly in the 
Brittany resorts as in those of Normandy. Some Pari- 
sians of the fashionable set have wandered to Switzerland 
or to German or French spas. Others have spent the 
summer in quiet country houses and chateaux far from 
fashion's haunts; but from all quarters they flock to 
Paris when August is past, and Paris welcomes them 
with smiles. She has amused herself after a fashion, 
but the summer has been long and a trifle dull. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 

The Parislenne adores Paris, but she is subject to 
acute attacks of that modern malady to which the leisure 
class is peculiarly susceptible, and which one of Ma- 
dame's countrymen has aptly called the "nostalgie 
d'ailleurs" — homesickness for elsewhere. 

Moved by that spirit of restlessness she forsakes Paris 
— in order that she may better love that city of her 
heart. She does not yearn for rest, but she wants change, 
and so she goes flitting here and there within easy reach 
of Paris — always within easy reach of Paris. Her 
fashion circuit is circumscribed by that national senti- 
ment which makes the average Frenchman an un- 
happy and protesting aHen anywhere outside of la belle 
France. 

Madame goes to Monte Carlo; for the Cote d'Azur 
Rapid has made the Riviera resorts mere suburbs of 
Paris. She goes to Tangiers; for, after all, Tangiers is 
France, and in the French quarter of that picturesque 
place one finds a limited edition of Parisian society. 
But as for Cairo — no. The fashion show in Cairo, 
during the height of the season, is a great one, but it is 
furnished chiefly by English and Americans, and one 
finds few smart French folk in the throng. The Pyra- 

140 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 141 

mids are too far from the Avenue des Acacias and the 
Rue de la Paix. 

The Monte Carlo season is not, like the seashore 
season, an obligatory decampment. One may stay 
away from the Riviera without imperilling one's social 
position, while a summer spent in Paris would stamp 
one as quite outside the social pale; and, though there 
is, during January and February, a mighty going and 
coming to and from the south, Paris is gay and crowded 
all through the winter. 

Great private fetes are usually reserved for the spring 
season, unless some special event calls them forth, but 
there is a merry-go-round of more or less formal enter- 
taining, and the society woman needs an expert account- 
ant to keep her engagement book, and the semainier 
which records the at-home days of her friends, in intel- 
ligible order. There is time in the winter for the intimate 
reunions that are likely to be crowded out in the whirl of 
spring social functions, and when Bagatelle and Puteaux 
and la Boulie and the other open-air rendezvous are elim- 
inated from the Parisienne's calculations, she can more 
often meet her friends in her own home or in theirs. 

Balls are not a remarkably important feature of the 
Parisian season. There is dancing, of course, but the 
Frenchmen, as a rule, do not care for it. 

"The ball? Je m'en passe," said a society man of 
Paris, when questioned about the matter. 

"In America it is, perhaps, different. There one 
dances and one sits out dances, and one converses, and 
one flirts. Here, it is usually for the demoiselles that 



142 IN VANITY FAIR 

dances are given. You know our French girls? The 
writers tell us that they are emancipated, that they know 
many things. Perhaps, — but they do not show all 
this at the dance. One is introduced, one takes the 
girl from her mamma, one dances with her, one returns 
her to her mamma. C'est finis. Gai 9a, n'est-ce pas ? 
For the man who wishes to marry, to settle himself, 
the private ball may have much interest; but for one 
who seeks merely amusement, entertainment, — Grace 
a Dieu, il y a d'autres choses." 

Truly, there are other things, a multitude of them. 
The Parisian hostess makes a feature of the musicale 
and certain salons are famous for music of extraordinarily 
good quality. Private theatricals, amateur or profes- 
sional, are a social specialty in Paris. Bridge is a passion 
there as elsewhere. Parisian vivacity and buoyancy 
make even the formal reception an occasion lively rather 
than depressing. 

But, when all is said, the dinner is the private social 
function dearest to the Parisian heart, and the successful 
Parisian hostess understands the art of dinner-giving 
as do few other women in the world. An elaborate 
menu and a gorgeous and extravagant decorative scheme 
seldom enter into her calculations. There is a rational 
number of courses, perfectly cooked, perfectly served, 
there is a dainty and attractive table; but the extrava- 
gant display, the eager striving after unique and pic- 
turesque effects in table decoration, the costly souvenirs 
which mark the formal dinner in New York, are not 
often a part of the French scheme. 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 143 

On the other hand, the French hostess displays a tact 
and finesse amounting to genius in the selection and 
grouping of her guests, and, as a result, her dinner goes 
off with a verve which no amount of extraneous gorgeous- 
ness could achieve. The Parisienne of the better type, 
— "she of the subtle charm, to whom every man is a 
possible admirer" — has a famous opportunity for ex- 
hibiting her charm at the dinner table — particularly at 
the ''little dinner." From the time she could Hsp she 
has been trained to please and be pleased. She lacks 
the cultivated imperiousness of the American woman, 
and though she too, rules, her method differs from 
that of our social tyrant. Instead of demanding man's 
allegiance and devotion, she sets about winning them. 
She is gay, agreeable, witty, sympathetic, thoughtful 
of man's little needs, indulgent of man's little foibles; 
and her influence, though less assertive, is subtler than 
that of the American woman who claims her throne by 
divine right. Someone has said that "cherchez la 
femme" is written over every phase of Parisian life, 
and the thing is true. The Parisienne's influence is 
felt in politics, art, business, society, and yet the Pari- 
sienne is so essentially feminine, and the Parisian is so 
sure of his supremacy, so unconscious of any bondage 
save that of love or gallantry. 

The Parisienne was born to dining. She has adopted 
tea-drinking. Fifteen years ago it was almost impossible 
to obtain a good cup of tea in Paris. To-day Paris is 
flooded with tea. The change has come about through 
the Anglomania which, within recent years, has attacked 



144 IN VANITY FAIR 

Parisian society. Tea came in with polo and golf, and 
English tweeds, and long walks, and all the other Anglo- 
Saxon strenuousness which has disturbed French tradi- 
tions. It has become the fashion to adopt English sports, 
English clothes, English customs, English slang. 

The Frenchwoman has a form of the mania less 
virulent than that which has attacked the Frenchman. 
She may go in for le sport, may do violence to her in- 
clinations and her Louis XV heels by walking, — or 
as she calls it, "footing," — may employ an English maid 
and interlard her conversation with English phrases; 
but she draws the line at English clothes, while the 
French dandy's ultimate ambition is to be mistaken 
for an Englishman, and to that end he employs London 
tailors, cultivates English habits, and succeeds in being 
as much like a Londoner as the Place de la Concorde 
is like Trafalgar Square. 

Five o'clock tea is a matter-of-course necessity in 
London. In Paris it is a fad, and to "five-o'-clocker" 
is one of the unfailing diversions of the smart Parisienne, 
whether mondaine or demi-mondaine. 

Naturally, being a social fad instead of a personal 
comfort, afternoon tea is seldom served to Madame 
when she is alone in boudoir or salon. 

If one is at home to one's friends, and there is an ap- 
preciative audience for a tea-gown of rare merit, then 
there is good reason to five-o'-clocker under one's own 
roof; but, on the whole, the Parisienne loves better to 
make a toilette worthy of applause and sally forth to 
drink her tea under the eyes of her world. 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 145 

Columbin's was the first of the fashionable tea-rooms. 
Just why the Uttle patisserie on the Rue Cambon leaped 
into fame, it is hard to say. Anglomania was rife, the 
Parisienne needed new amusement. A shrewd patissier 
combined the psychical moment with superior-toasted 
currant muffins and cakes and tea and a convenient 
rendezvous. All the smart Parisian set flocked to Co- 
lumbin's, the narrow Rue Cambon was crowded with 
imposing equipages, the curb was lined with dapper 
grooms, and in the little tea-rooms, between five and 
six, there was one of the most impressive fashion shows 
of the fashion-making city. 

There is no need of putting the story In the past tense. 
The crowd and the fashion show are still to be seen in 
the Rue Cambon, though Columbin's has spread over 
more space and rival tea-rooms have sprung up like 
mushrooms all over Paris. On almost any corner one 
may now get a good cup of tea, but among the multi- 
tude of tea-rooms only a few have caught the fancy of 
the fashionable Parisiennes. 

Rumpelmayer's on the Rue de Rivoli is one of the 
few, and is perhaps the most successful rival of Columbin's 
among the Parisian mondaines; but tea hour at the 
Ritz is vastly entertaining, if less exclusive, and more 
cosmopolitan, while at the Elysees there is music and 
things are excessively gay. "Too gay," says Madame 
of the chic Parisian set, with an expressive shrug of her 
shoulders, but one goes to the Elysees all the same. 

Possibly a pretty woman is prettier in ball or dinner 
toilette than in any other dress, — though one might 



146 IN VANITY FAIR 

take issue even with that theory; but surely individuality 
and distinctive elegance count for more in street cos- 
tumes of the handsome type than in any other item of 
a woman's wardrobe. The tea-hour crowd at — say 
Columbin's, on a winter afternoon, diflFuses an at- 
mosphere of luxury, elegance, richness, that even Paris 
would find it hard to surpass. She is so coquette in her 
velvets and broadcloth and furs, this dear Parisienne. 
She steps from her carriage and passes through the door 
which her groom hurries to open. Inside is a murmur 
of many voices, a ripple of laughter, a rustle of silken 
stuffs, a scent of violets. Madame looks about her and 
smiles — an inclusive smile, for she recognizes so many 
of the women who are grouped about the little tables. 
Then she trails her chiffons forward in the manner 
habitual with Ouida's heroines, and she stops to choose 
just the little cakes she will have with her tea. The 
little cakes of Paris merit consideration. She turns her 
back upon the tea drinkers as she deliberates, my lady 
chez Columbin. It requires supreme confidence in 
one's figure and one's dressmaker to turn one's back 
gracefully, carelessly, upon one's most merciless critics, 
but Madame does it with nonchalance, and when she 
has settled the weighty question of cakes she finds her 
way to a table, stopping here and there to exchange 
greetings and jests with friends. She is perfectly 
gowned, wrapped in superb and becoming furs, smiling 
under the shadowing brim and nodding plumes of her 
great hat or under the tip-tilted absurdity of her tiny 
toque. And all around her are women of the same type, 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 147 

exotic products of a society highly artificial, sensuously 
material. Some of them are beautiful, some are homely, 
all are extravagantly dressed, and all have made that 
effort to appear beautiful which is with the Parisienne 
— more than with any other woman of the world — 
an absorbing passion. 

It is this determined spirit of coquetry which leads 
the mondaine of Paris to make up in a fashion which 
in other cities is relegated chiefly to the class without 
the social gates. The Parisienne makes up frankly, 
conscientiously, with thought only of the effect obtained 
and with no effort to attribute to nature the results of 
her maid's skill or her own. Her cosmetics are as much 
a part of her toilette as her frock or her hat, and her 
French audience applauds her make-up instead of criti- 
cising. It is coquette, this artificiality, it shows that 
desire to please which is the fundamental principle of 
French femininity. If one is beautiful — that is excel- 
lent. If one is not beautiful, but makes a heroic effort 
to appear so, — that too is excellent. The French 
public forgives all save indifference to the true feminine 
metier. 

Over in the spacious rooms of the Ritz, at the tea 
hour, one will find more English and Americans than 
French, though the French go there too, and there is a 
sprinkling of many nations. The crowd is more mixed 
than that of the Rue Cambon, in features other than 
that of nationality. Few demi-mondaines go to Colum- 
bin's. Why ? — It is hard to tell, — but they do not go. 
Occasionally, demi-mondaines of the highest class drift 



148 IN VANITY FAIR 

In, but they are out of their element. There are hardly 
enough of them to give each other confidence. 

At the Ritz things are different. There one is Hkely 
to see the most famous half-world beauties of Paris 
drinking tea, and at the Elysees the percentage of 
notoriety is still greater than at the Ritz. 

They love dearly to range themselves alongside of 
the haut monde, these cocottes of Paris, but they like a 
large and varied scene, a certain amount of moral — 
or immoral — support. The restricted intimacy of a 
rendezvous like Columbin's is not to their taste. 

At the Palais de Glace the demi-mondaine shines. 
Here is a setting to which she lends herself readily, a 
setting, moreover, in which she may pose beside Madame 
of the beau monde and measure charms with her. 

Only the social elect may skate at the Cercle des 
Patineurs in the Bois, and there one finds the society 
women of Paris gliding over the ice or chatting around 
the braziers on the banks of the horseshoe lake. It is 
the most chic of social rendezvous, this skating club in 
the Bois, but the weather clerk is no respecter of high 
society, and there are comparatively few weeks during 
the winter when open-air skating is practicable in Paris. 

Down at the Palais de Glace on the Champs Elysees, 
the management deals out artificial ice to the just and 
the unjust every day during the season. Even in 
October there is skating at the Palais, and it is chic 
to skate then, just as it is chic to eat fresh strawberries 
in January, while, during midwinter, this skating-rink 
is one of the most popular afternoon resorts in Paris. 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 149 

The Parisian skating costume is a triumph, and the 
Parisiennes skate well, conscious of their own grace 
and revelling in that consciousness. Some' of the great 
ladies of the French world are famous skaters; especially 
certain members of the Russian colony; and there 
are demi-mondaines too who skate marvellously well, — 
particularly two or three Danish beauties, who have 
taken on a Parisian lacquer. After all, it is hardly fair 
that the demi-mondaine of Paris should be credited 
entirely to the essential immorality of French society, 
and constitute a reproach against French womanhood, 
for the class is cosmopolitan to an extraordinary degree, 
recruited from Spain, from Italy, from Austria, from 
Russia, from Germany, from Sweden, from Denmark, 
from all countries of Europe, and centred in Paris 
because there are concentrated the wealth and prodi- 
gality of a material: and luxurious civilization, because 
there the cocotte can live her short day so brilliantly, so 
dizzily, that during it she can quite forget the inevitable 
hideousness of the long days to come. 

The little grisettes of the Latin Quarter and Mont- 
martre are largely French, and bear the homely French 
names, — Suzanne, Rose, Marie, — but they are, on 
the whole, the most honest, the least degraded and 
corrupt, as they are the humblest of the class to which, 
broadly speaking, they belong. A grade higher — or 
lower — according to the view-point of the one who 
classifies, is the little cocotte of the cafes and dance 
halls, the Cri-Cri of the Casino, the Fol-Fol of the 
Elysees Montmartre. When the boulevards and the 



ISO IN VANITY FAIR 

better theatres and cafes are reached, the name is prone 
to take on dignity. Antoinette, Diane, Heloise appear. 
And further still up the cocotte's ladder comes an in- 
sistent "Mademoiselle" or "Madame." When the 
cocotte has become truly demi-mondaine, when she 
buys her clothes on the Place Vendome, and acquires a 
villa at Trouville, an hotel in Paris, she adds Madame 
to a high sounding, mouth-filling name, such as Mont- 
morency or Beauregard. Perhaps she even preempts a 
title. There, for instance, was the Princesse d'Araignee. 
She was very quiet, this Princess, very retiring, but Paris 
knew her as it knew the king who was for many years 
her lover, and to whom she was loyal, though he came 
but seldom to Paris. He is dead now, that royal lover 
— a tragic death — and the Princess — but this was 
to be a story of her title. 

The title was, on its face, self-explanatory. "The 
Spider Princess" had a fine appropriateness in the half- 
world of Paris. One day some one spoke jestingly of 
the name. The Princess shook her head. 

"It is really mine," she said gravely, "mine since I 
was a baby." 

The jester looked incredulous. 

"But yes. I will tell you," said the Princess. "I 
am of Normandy. You did not know ? Yes, I am of 
Normandy. I was born there in a little village by the 
sea. Such a very little town. I can see it now. My 
father was a fisherman. Big and brown and strong, 
my father — and kind. But yes, of a kindness. He 
loved me, and I — I adored him. My mother was good 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 151 

— an honest woman, but it was my father whom I 
adored. When he was at home I trotted always at 
his heels — une toute petite bebe, brown and plump 
and laughing always. 

There was a big rock in the harbour — an immense 
jagged rock in the water. The waves washed over it 
always, save on one day during the month. Then it 
was quite out of the water and it lay there like a great 
spider in the sunshine, with long legs running but into 
the foam. Along the coast they called it I'Araignee. 

" It fascinated me, that big rock spider. All the month 
I watched for it, and when it came up out of the sea I 
cried to be taken out to it. My father took me. He 
was like that always — tres indulgent, mon pere, and 
I — what I wanted I must have. 

"He would carry me down to his boat and row out 
to the rock and then we would eat our luncheon there, 
and he would tell me stories and I would play — une 
bebe, vous savez. I had then but four years, and I was 
happy — Dieu, que j'etais heureuse. The fisher-folk 
came to know me there on my rock, to look for us, mon 
pere et moi, and they called me la Princesse d'Araignee. 
Yes, that was my name. Everyone called me that, 
smiling, and I was proud. 

"One does not stay always a baby. I grew up, and 
the father died. It was dull there in the little Norman 
village. I wanted excitement, and — what I wanted 
I must have, I was always like that. 

"The story tells itself after that, n'est-ce pas ? I came 
to Paris, and I found the excitement. But one does 



152 IN VANITY FAIR 

not use the name of an honest father here in Paris. II 
etalt tellement bon, mon pere. 

"I remembered that I had been a princess and I 
took my title once more. La Princesse d'Araignee! 
You see it is really mine, the title. The rock is still 
there in the sea, — but, mon pere et moi — " 

A far cry from the Palais du Glace, yet not so far 
after all, as memories go; for the Princesse d'Araignee 
was at the Palais du Glace one December afternoon 
long ago, and her king was by her side. 

If one does not skate, still one goes to the skating-rink. 
The promenade is crowded on popular afternoons with 
all the types familiar in leisure Paris. Women in airy 
gowns and picture hats furnish effective contrast to the 
feminine skaters in their short skirts and jaunty toques. 
A fragrance of flowers and perfumes floats in the air, 
the ring of the skates sounds through the swinging 
melody of the music. Once more the Parisian artifi- 
ciality — once more the Parisian charm. 

On one afternoon in the week the crowd at the Palais 
takes on a most chic and exclusive tone. The prices 
are higher on that day, but high prices would never shut 
out the cocotte and her following. Quite the reverse. 
An unwritten law accomplishes what the increased 
prices would not accomplish, and Friday afternoon 
smart society claims the rink for its own. That is le 
jour chic at the Palais de Glace. If one goes on 
other days — as one does — there is a fair field and no 
favour. 

The theatres of Paris are in full swing during the 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 153 

winter, and new plays are magnets for the society set 
as for all Paris; but even the smartest of Parisians are 
democratic when it comes to theatre-going, and no one 
or two houses claim their allegiance. The Theatre 
Fran^ais, the Odeon, les . Nouveautes, les Varietes, le 
Vaudeville, le Theatre Antoine, le Theatre Sara Bern- 
hardt, le Maturin, — to all of these Madame goes, and 
to the cafes chantants in addition. Wherever there is 
clever entertainment, there one finds the swell Parisienne. 
She is catholic of taste. 

Americans visiting Paris in summer are likely to have 
a curious idea of the Parisian theatre, as of many things 
Parisian. Then the better theatres are closed, the actors 
are probably away with the summer holiday folk, or, if 
the exigencies of their profession keep them in Paris, 
they are occupying little villas at Ville d'Avray, at Bou- 
gival, or in some other convenient suburb, whence they 
can run in for rehearsals or professional business when 
necessary. 

Only the cafes chantants and the variety theatres are 
open and beckoning to the summer visitors, and the 
crowd at these places has little of the- true Parisian char- 
acter, is made up chiefly of strangers from the colonies, 
from America, from a host of regions whose summer 
climates are more trying than that of Paris. The shows 
are amusing in their way, the crowd is amusing too, but 
neither is calculated to give one an accurate idea of 
Paris theatre or of Paris theatre-goers. Indeed, one 
thing about the summer attendance at Les Ambassa- 
deurs, le Jardin de Paris, and the other resorts that 



154 IN VANITY FAIR 

draw the crowd during July and August, always 
impresses Parisians themselves as phenomenal and 
distinctly shocking. The "jeune fille" of France does 
not frequent "ces coins la," but respectable American 
fathers and mothers tranquilly take their daughters 
with them to cafes chantants, variety theatres, even to 
the dance halls of the Rive Gauche and of Montmartre. 
A goodly number of these rendezvous exist solely for 
the delectation of visiting strangers and, like the Moulin 
Rouge, are supported chiefly by the American tourists' 
money. That the Moulin Rouge is dead speaks well 
for the educational development of the American travel- 
ler, but from the ashes of the place, which had nothing 
save sheer vulgarity to commend it, has risen a variety 
theatre with cafe balconies, and some of the dance-hall 
features of the old resort are retained in modified form. 
The Cafe de la Mort, and the other melodramatic and 
banal cafes, where efforts are made to provide the 
visitor with a shock that will sustain the reputation of 
Paris for devilish wickedness, are, like the Moulin Rouge 
of unblessed memory, provided for the edification of 
travellers, and supported chiefly by American dollars. 
Even Maxim's, which means to the average American 
the last word on Parisian impropriety, is, by Parisians 
themselves, considered one of the concessions to Ameri- 
can and English expectations and tastes. 

** Maxim's? Oh c'est bete 9a — toujours les Ameri- 
cains chez Maxim," says the Frenchman, disdainfully. 

There is wicknedess enough of a purely Parisian 
flavour in Paris, heaven knows; but the lurid spectacles 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 155 

provided for the tourist are perhaps the least immoral 
if the most vulgar of its manifestations. 

The Opera is a tradition of the Paris season. All of 
the swell clubs have boxes and the society folk who can 
afford it subscribe, yet the opera is not so important an 
item of the social year in Paris as in New York, and one 
will usually see more elaborate toilettes and more fashion- 
able women in any one of the popular theatres than at 
the Opera. 

When spring comes to Paris and the horse-chestnuts 
burst into bloom, new elements enter into the merry- 
go-round. The clubs in the Bois and outside of Paris 
become centres of social activity, the races begin, al 
fresco dining and tea-drinking are in order. Hostesses 
blest with such grounds as those of Baronne Henri 
Rothschild give picturesque garden parties, there are 
chic evening fetes at Puteaux, elaborate open-air charity 
entertainments are organized. Riding and driving in 
the Bois, which has continued languishingly during the 
winter, takes on new spirit. 

The Avenue des Acacias is thronged with carriages 
and motors at the driving hours, and now and then 
women descend from their carriage to promenade, to 
chat with friends, to display their toilettes. 

The Avenue des Acacias is the drive of drives for the 
mixed crowd of smart folk, but the old nobility of France 
prefers to drive in stately hauteur along the Avenue de 
la Reine Marguerite. One must make some protest 
against the levelling of class barriers. 

The two most fashionable bridle-paths run along 



156 IN VANITY FAIR 

beside these two favourite driving avenues, but the 
whole Bois is a paradise of bridle-paths, and near its 
centre is a spot which has been chosen as the favourite 
meeting-place of chic riders at certain hours. The 
Parisians are riding more since things English became 
the fashion, and many of them ride very well, though 
the men affect English horsemanship to the point of 
caricature; but, on the whole, the French are better at 
haute ecole riding than at park riding. They make the 
best circus riders in the world, but the horsemanship of 
the average rider on the bridle-paths of the Bois leaves 
much to be desired. 

As for driving, there are many good whips, but the 
accomplishment is not general, and few Parisiennes of 
social prominence drive. It is not "convenable," and 
though several of the greatest ladies of France hold the 
reins over their own fine horses in the Bois, driving 
alone with a groom is generally ranked in the same 
category as walking alone with a dog. The woman 
who does either must expect uncomplimentary classi- 
fication, unless she stands high enough to be a law unto 
herself. 

And apropos of dogs, the pet dog show is always one 
of the events of the spring season, an occasion that calls 
for artistic effect in mistress as well as dog, produces 
scores of effective tableaux, offers testimony concerning 
feminine folly. There are good dogs shown, dog aristo- 
crats of unimpeachable birth and breeding, but their 
exhibition is enveloped in such a flurry of chiffons, such 
a hysteria of pride, ambition, emotion. Nowhere in 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 157 

the world has the dog endured such insults to his sturdy, 
canine simplicity as in Paris. Nowhere else has he 
been so dandified, so coddled, so spoiled. The pet dog 
of the Parisienne of high degree is likely to be a sybarite, 
and the pet dog of the famous cocotte leads a luxurious 
existence that demands prodigal expenditure. 

One Parisian dog tailor has a most flourishing and 
successful business. He is the Paquin of dogdom, and 
let no one think that he is not an artist. When Madame 
brings her little angel to him for a spring outfit, there 
is an impressive paraphrase of Madame's own sessions 
with her couturier, — a serious conference concerning 
materials, colours, trimmings, models. In New York 
a dog blanket is a dog blanket. It may be cheap or 
expensive, but it is probably bought ready made and 
approximately fitted. The Parisian dog tailor con- 
siders his client's figure, complexion, air. 

*' But no, Madame. I find that he has not the breadth 
of chest to wear that model — and the colour! He is not 
of a type for the blue and silver. A warm violet, now, 
with the embroidery in more tender shades, and a 
touch of gold ? Bon! And the curving line on the 
shoulder ? It gives an air of slenderness, that shoulder 
seam. Madame has samples of the other costumes 
she wishes to match ? " 

Absurd ? Of course it is all ineffably absurd, but the 
mania for dress extends even to the lapdog in Paris. 

The little angel has also his boots — of fur for the 
cold, of oilskin for the dampness. He has his tiny ker- 
chiefs of cobweb fineness, embroidered with his name 



158 IN VANITY FAIR 

or monogram, and tucked into the pockets of his hand- 
some coats. He wears jewelry, more or less costly, 
collars, bangles, even bracelets. One notorious Pari- 
sienne has a collection of jewelry for her dog that is 
worth a fortune, collars of cabuchon emeralds and 
diamonds, of pink pearls, of cunningly wrought gold 
and lucky jade. It is a hobby of the mistress, this dog 
jewelry, and when one's specialty is the speedy bank- 
rupting of Grand Dukes and wealthy American fledg- 
lings and rich Portuguese Jews, one has the money for 
one's hobbies. 

The pet dog show is not a dog clothes exhibit. The 
entries are judged upon their canine merits, but it is 
amusing all the same, this event, and the mistresses 
pose most charmingly with their pets. Nothing that 
happens in Paris lacks its theatrical note. 

The Fete des Fleurs belongs to the spring season, but 
it does not belong to the smart Parisian set, though 
every one turns out to see the show. The fete is given 
in the name of charity, and doubtless charity covers its 
sin, but there is more than a little vulgarity and horse- 
play mixed with the picturesque beauty of the scene. 
A part of the Bois is roped off, and an entrance fee is 
charged for all sight-seers and equipages passing the 
barriers. So much for charity. The rest is merry- 
making of a somewhat promiscuous sort. Every seat 
along the avenues is taken, masses of flowers are banked 
high along the curb, to be sold as ammunition for the 
battle of flowers. Bands are playing, flags are flutter- 
ing, garlands are swinging from decorated poles, and 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 159 

past the judges' stand by the pigeon-shooting club files 
an endless line of carriages, carts, automobiles, fiacres, 
conveyances of all types, from the butcher's cart, bearing 
the honest butcher and his wife and children, to the 
electric victoria of the most famous dancer of Paris. 
Only the chic society woman is conspicuous by her 
absence. One seldom sees, in the Fete des Fleurs pro- 
cession, faces familiar in the exclusive salons. 

But the sight is an interesting one, for all that. A 
Parisian fete does not need the indorsement of the Fau- 
bourg St. Germain in order to be gay, and the public 
celebrities and demi-mondaines turn out in all their 
glory for the Fete des Fleurs. 

Pretty women look out from the riot of flowers that 
covers hansom, victoria, dog-cart, phaeton, automobile, 
and money has been spent like water to furnish some of 
the beauties with their setting. One phaeton is literally 
hidden under purple orchids, and holds two blondes 
elaborately arrayed in white and violet. Behind comes 
a victoria trimmed in thousands of yellow and red roses 
and bearing a noted Spanish dancer. A popular opera 
singer has made her motor car a moving bank of pink 
roses and violets. 

Bunches of forget-me-nots and daisies and pinks are 
hurtling through the air. A popular lionne of the day 
is so pelted with fragrant ammunition that she springs 
up in her carriage bower and stands, a slender mousse- 
line-draped beauty, laughing under the rain of nosegays, 
and with gay abandon returning her assailants' fire. 

In the carriage just behind hers are two gorgeously 



i6o IN VANITY FAIR 

gowned women, old and haggard and hideous under 
their cosmetics, dereUcts, favourites who have outlived 
their day, and are fighting the hopeless fight against 
defeat and misery and oblivion; but the beauty of the 
flower battle does not look behind her and read the 
memento mori. She is having her day now. What 
has yesterday or to-morrow to do with a Fete des 
Fleurs ? 

There are other public fetes on the floodtide of the 
Paris spring, — plebeian, many of them, and the Fete 
de Neuilly is one of the most plebeian; yet it is chic to go 
to Neuilly at least once while the van dwellers from all 
the highways and byways of France are in camp along 
the Avenue de Neuilly. From every direction the vaga- 
bonds have gathered, — a motley crew of gipsy wan- 
derers, strolling entertainers who, after a winter in the 
provinces, have found their way back to the borders of 
the Paris they love. 

Ramshackle booths, tents, shooting-galleries, carou- 
sels, acrobats, fortune-tellers, snake-charmers, lion 
tamers, ventriloquists, fat ladies, magicians, vendors of 
every imaginable cheap and tawdry thing — the old 
Coney Island multiplied by ten and invested with a 
GalHc Hghtness and sparkle in place of its own dull 
vulgarity. That is the Neuilly Fair. 

Smart folk give jolly little dinners and, after, take 
their guests out to Neuilly for a lark. They visit the 
side shows, and shoot at the balls, and buy ridiculous 
souvenirs, and ride on the carousel, and throw confetti, 
and give themselves up to vulgar amusements with the 



THE MERRY-GO-ROUND i6i 

infantile joyousness that is a characteristic Parisian 
mood. 

Madame is very charming in all her elegant perfection 
against the tawdry background of Neuilly, and she 
knows that she is charming — all of which helps to 
make the ''Neuilly evening" a popular item on the 
June programme. 

There was once a crown prince who went to the 
Neuilly Fete, and who saw a gipsy girl there. He was 
bon gar^on, this crown prince, and he was doing the 
fete incognito and with a thoroughness that included 
making friends with many of the van folk. The gipsy 
girl was beautiful. She killed herself afterward, far 
from Paris, in the country of the Prince, but one expects 
comedy, not tragedy, of the fete de Neuilly. 

Princes and kings are frequent visitors in Paris, and 
when they come officially, everyone, from the President 
of the Republic to the street-sweeper of the boulevards, 
conspires to do them honour. But his Royal Highness 
loves better to visit Paris incog, and amuse himself 
according to his own will. He has even been known to 
make an official visit, to endure with cheerful resigna- 
tion the formal entertaining lavished upon him, to be 
escorted to the station by a guard of honour and high 
officials, to wave a courteous adieu from his car window, 
and, within forty-eight hours, to be back in Paris, in- 
cognito, with only one or two members of his suite for 
attendants and only his own tastes to be consulted in 
the matter of entertainment. Even royalty is human. 

Paris dances and sings and fiddles her way through 



i62 IN VANITY FAIR 

the spring days — as she has danced and sung and 
fiddled her way through history; and when July comes 
and the bUnds are drawn down in the fashionable resi- 
dence quarters, still Paris is not dull. 

Swarms of visitors from the Colonies, from Southern 
Europe, from America, fill the gaps left by departing 
Parisians. Restaurant tables are crowded. Les Am- 
bassadeurs, THorloge and their rivals do a flourishing 
business. Only the onlooker who knows the real Paris 
misses the gayest element of the Parisian world from 
its accustomed haunts, and finds the Parisian summer 
a dreary interregnum twixt season and season. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHATEAUX 

With September, Parisians renounce their allegiance 
to Neptune. For that matter, Neptune has little to do 
even with the seashore season of the Parisian world. 
The hoary old fellow is but a detail of the stage setting. 
Whatever sovereignty he may have claimed at Trouville, 
Dieppe, Dinard, he long ago made over to Venus 
Anadyomene, and even she cannot hold her courtiers. 
There comes a day when the sands that have for months 
bloomed riotously in Parisian gowns and sunshades and 
millinery, stretch away, yellow and lone, before deserted 
casinos and empty hotels. 

The seashore season is over. The hunting season is 
on. 

Venus Anadyomene has given way to Diana, goddess 
of the chase. Pagan Neptune has handed the fashion- 
able crowd over to Christian St. Hubert, patron saint of 
venery. 

There is an element of farce in certain phases of 
French hunting, for the Frenchman is born to theatrical 
effects as the sparks fly upward, and the good shop- 
keeper of Paris goes a-hunting in a fashion that has 
been the delight oi Punch artists for many years. He is 

163 



i64 IN VANITY FAIR 

so round and rosy and valiant and important this French 
sportsman of Punch, his hunting costume is so elaborate, 
he is so lavishly equipped with hunting paraphernalia. 
The railway stations of Paris are crowded with hunters 
of this class when the falling leaves are aswirl in the 
forests of France; but Monsieur is only one of many 
French hunting types, and the English go far astray 
when they make the caricature inclusive, just as they 
strain the truth when they picture the French follower 
of hounds as a dapper and rotund little fop clinging 
frantically round his horse's neck and shouting — " Stop 
ze hunt! Stop zat fox! I tomble! I falofF! Stop ze 
fox!" 

If the London cockney should arise en masse each 
October and go forth to hunt as does the bourgeois 
of Paris, there would doubtless be amusing sights 
in the railway stations of London; and though the 
fox hunting of France does not compare favourably 
with that of England, there's many a fox-hunting 
English squire who would fall by the way if he 
attempted to ride with a wiry French marquis on an 
all day and night wolf hunt through the woods and 
plains of Poitou. 

The chase is a passion with the French, and all classes 
save those to which a day's holiday, a gun, and a dog 
are unattainable joys hail the advent of the shooting 
season with enthusiasm. One sees the solitary hunter 
in the marshes near the city, or searching patiently for 
birds on ground where no placards warn trespassers 
away. The toy estates that fringe the woods near Paris 



HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHATEAUX 165 

are carefully enclosed in high fences of wire net, and 
there, on clear autumn mornings, there is a mighty 
fusillade among the thickets while Monsieur in his 
English tweeds, and Madame in her newest and most 
impractical shooting costume, and their equally decora- 
tive friends, play at la chasse. 

Since the greater part of the French land is subdivided 
to a remarkable degree, and the average proprietor 
cannot shoot over his own place without danger of 
killing the owner or the game on adjoining property, 
many shooting alliances are made between groups of 
men owning adjacent lands, and the privilege of hunting 
over the whole territory is accorded to each of the group, 
while the game killed is apportioned according to fixed 
rules. There are other hunting syndicates more am- 
bitious, renting or owning expensive preserves in country 
far from Paris, and, of course, there are the fortunate 
owners of large estates who have on their own preserves 
enough good shooting to satisfy even the most exacting 
of English sportsmen. 

Millionaire bourgeois own a majority of the important 
preserves of Seine et Marne, Seine et Oise, and Oise, 
and the Rothschilds have the finest shooting estate in 
France, at Vaux-de-Cernay. Kings and princes from 
all quarters of Europe have shot the birds of the famous 
banker, who is a power behind many thrones, and some 
of the fetes that have followed great hunts in the Roths- 
child coverts have been memorable ones. Four thou- 
sand pheasants were slaughtered to make a holiday for 
the last royal guest, and after the hunt came an evening 



i66 IN VANITY FAIR 

of dazzling fete and spectacular illumination of all the 
country round. 

There are other estates where the chasses a tir are 
famous and where sumptuous entertaining is done 
during shooting season; but it is in the chasse a cour that 
France lives up to its old traditions and can show the 
disdainful Englishman sport not known on the English 
country side. 

The area of the French hunting districts is compara- 
tively small, for over half of the hounds of France are 
found in Vendee, Anjou, Touraine, and Poitou, but the 
packs are many and admirable and the sport is good. 
In the remote regions there is boar hunting, that for an 
exciting run and a dangerous finish beats anything 
England has to offer. The Frenchman will go far for 
a boar hunt, but he will not take many of his favourite 
hounds with him. English foxhounds are cheaper and the 
boar is sure to make short work of any dog that runs in 
on him when he stands at bay, bristles erect, little eyes 
red with rage, foam flying from his champing tusks; 
so, as a rule, the French dog is used only to locate the 
boar, and English dogs are offered up, if sacrifice there 
must be. 

For wolf hunting the French hounds are called into 
service, though it is difficult to break any hound to wolf 
scent, and nothing wears a dog out more effectually than 
a wolf chase. Good horses are required, too, for a 
wolf hunt is likely to mean a night out and a tremendous 
straight-away run over a wide area, and even when 
dogs and horses and hunters are of the best, an old 



HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHATEAUX 167 

wolf will usually give them all the slip. The beast has 
phenomenal endurance and cunning. For hours he will 
idle along just in front of the hounds, knowing they 
dare not attack him while he is fresh. Then, when the 
pack is beginning to breathe hard and labour a little, 
Monsieur le loup shows what he can do in the way of 
speed when he really gives his mind to it. Away he 
flies, a streak of yellow grey, leaving his pursuers far 
behind, and the chances are that pack and hunters have 
but a magnificent run for their pains. One of the most 
famous sportsmen of France, who keeps a pack devoted 
altogether to wolf hunting, says that he has killed less 
than a half dozen old wolves in his hunting career. 

Louveteaux — young wolves — furnish most of the 
sport, and here the story is a different one; forthe year- 
old wolf provides a long and brilliant but usually suc- 
cessful run, and frequently a kill in the night when 
flaming torches held by huntsmen in picturesque livery 
throw weird lights and shadows over the scene. 

Small wonder that the Frenchman who chases wolf 
and boar returns the Briton's scorn in kind, and calls 
the English fox hunt a "promenade a cheval." There 
is a certain amount of justice in the phrase, for the 
Englishman of fox-hunting fame hunts to ride instead 
of riding to hunt. 

The French sportsman shrugs his shoulders, too, at the 
stag hunt of old England. 

"To bring a tame deer in a box and push it under the 
noses of the hounds — Ce n'est pas la chasse, mon ami," 
says the Marquis, with fine contempt, and while his 



i68 IN VANITY FAIR 

description doesn't apply accurately to all English deer 
hunting, it is true that tracking the deer comes nearer 
deserving its title of royal sport in France than in 
England. 

Contrary to Punch tradition, the gentleman of France 
is usually a good shot. Shooting has been an essential 
part of his education and even the veriest dandy of 
Paris may be uncommonly handy with a revolver or 
gun. Such prowess is a part of the traditions of his 
race. Duelling was a passion and a diversion with his 
ancestors; and while serious duelling is, even in France, 
a trifle obsolete to-day, the customs due to it still exist. 
Monsieur le Marquis fences cleverly and shoots as well. 
Possibly he has his private shooting-gallery and prac- 
tices there for a while each morning; but, whether or 
no he has this private practice, he is fairly sure to turn 
up at some one of the public shooting rendezvous during 
the day. The Tir au Pigeon Club in the Bois is the 
nucleus from which all of the open-air clubs of Paris 
have developed, and is one of the most popular rendezvous 
for the smart Parisian set. The same is true at Deau- 
ville, at Nice, and wherever fashionable Parisian colonies 
are to be found, and the events at the exclusive shooting 
clubs in these places will always bring together a notable 
collection of society folk and an impressive exhibit of 
Parisian chiffons. 

There are many Frenchwomen who can hold their 
own with the men when it comes to the handling of a 
gun, and a few who can follow hounds as pluckily as 
any English Diana; while, as for the wearing of charming 



HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHATEAUX 169 

shooting costumes, for the covert, or for luncheon with 
the guns, of dressing effectively for the meet, of donning 
exquisite negligees for the tea hour when the huntsmen 
may be expected to straggle in, tired, valiant, and 
loquacious, — there the Parisienne leads the world. 
The tea gowns and shooting costumes of the Place 
Vendome and the Rue de la Paix are the true triumphs 
of the French hunting season and the wearing of them 
is to the average chateau guest a thing much more 
important than the killing of game — is, in fact, her 
method of following the chase. Nimrod may enjoy 
having his adored one by his side in the covert or running 
neck and neck with him behind the hounds, but he has 
little time for admiring her then. His heart is with 
pheasant or hare or deer. The story is a different one 
when he goes back to the chateau in the gathering 
twilight and finds daintily gowned women waiting, in 
the glow of fire and candle-light, to greet him with 
enthusiasm and listen with rapt attention while he 
fights his battles over again. Then is the hour of the 
sportswoman, for there's more truth than fiction in the 
theory so audaciously exploited in "Man and Superman." 
The form of the chase which appeals most keenly to 
women the world over is the pursuit of man, and the 
Parisienne in particular is a zealous devotee of the sport. 
A Frenchwoman famous for her advanced ideas, — 
the " new woman " translated into French — went to 
Berlin some years ago, and a conference of the emanci- 
pated was called to do her honour. She came into the 
audience hall, exquisitely gowned, the most delightfully 



I70 IN VANITY FAIR 

feminine of figures. She looked aghast at the band of 
strong-minded, atrociously dressed women assembled to 
hear her; and then, throwing aside her premeditated 
address upon woman's suffrage, she plunged into an 
eloquent plea for the union of becoming dress and 
emancipated womanhood, winding up with a fervent 
appeal to her sisters to remember always that they 
must dress to please the men. 

There spoke the true Frenchwoman, new or old; and 
the fair guests at the chateaux, whatever may be their 
feeling about the chase of stag or the shooting of birds, 
never are so lacking in sporting spirit that they neglect 
dressing to please the men. 

For the Parisienne in general the hunting season 
means only an excuse for chateaux visits, and a chateau 
visit means only picturesque meets at which one may 
wear one's smartest morning frock, chat with friends 
from other chateaux, flirt with gallant huntsmen, and, 
perhaps, follow the hunt at a discreet distance in cart 
or automobile; it means luncheon with the guns in 
English fashion, and another opportunity for a smart 
costume; it means the tea hour of coquetry and chiffons; 
it means superb dinners to which come fashionable folk 
from the country round about; it means evening festivi- 
ties of all kinds. Oh, an excellent opportunity for the 
displaying of one's wardrobe resources, is the chateau 
visit, and a super-excellent oportunity for les affaires de 
cceur is offered by the informal intimacy of a great 
house party. 

The pretentiousness of chateau entertainment depends, 



HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHATEAUX 171 

of course, upon the financial condition of the owner, and 
it is at the country places of the rich bourgeois, rather 
than in the most famous historic houses of France, that 
money is spent most freely during the chateau season, 
though American millions have made some aristocratic 
house parties famous for prodigal extravagance. 

Where money need not stand in the way, the programme 
of entertainment is often a costly one. Perhaps, as has 
happened before now, theatricals are the order of the 
day, and the entire company of one of the Parisian 
theatres is brought down from Paris for the occasion. 
Or a costume ball is on the tapis and the great dress- 
makers of the Rue de la Paix are called upon for dazzling 
costumes. Or a popular diseuse or chanteuse or dancer 
may be lured away from her cafe chantant for the 
evening in order to enliven the lovers of nature who 
have fled to sylvan haunts. 

And always one can play bridge. Ye gods, how they 
play bridge during the autumn days and nights, those 
transplanted Parisians! 

All through the long days when the men are oflF after 
bird or deer, the women, arrayed in the daintiest of 
bridge coats or frocks, sit around the card tables playing 
for stakes that are not always low; and indeed there are 
many days when even the men themselves forsake the 
coverts for the card tables. During the last chateau 
season, rumours ran concerning eighteen-hour sessions of 
bridge when mesdames and messieurs did not lay down 
their cards save for hasty luncheon and dinner. Stories 
were told, too, of immense losses sustained by guests at 



172 IN VANITY FAIR 

several famous houses, and games at a louis a point 
have ceased to be rare in the fashionable Parisian set. 
Some devotees of the game have, it is said, even installed 
little bridge tables in the salons of their loges at the 
opera and spirited games are played there in the in- 
tervals of the music, or to the neglect of the music. 

There are fashionable hostesses who deplore the craze, 
but the chief accusation brought against the game 
is characteristically French. One hears little protest 
against the ethics of bridge, but it appears that the new^ 
fad is killing conversation. If this is true, say the 
critics, something must indeed be done to save France. 
Conversation is, with the French, a religion, a heritage, 
an acquirement, an art, and this fine product of the 
centuries must not be allowed to perish in an epidemic 
of gambling. 

Even after a night spent at bridge, at least a large 
percentage of the chateau party is up and off to the 
meet in the grey of the morning. Madame may, perhaps, 
sleep later on, but the meet is an occasion, a social 
function, a golden opportunity for coquetry; and even if 
one does not expect to follow the hounds one must be 
in evidence at the reunion. So my lady is up betimes 
and at work upon her toilette, a toilette to the planning 
of which she has devoted anxious hours before leaving 
Paris. One must be tres chic at the meet, for les mes- 
sieurs will be out in force and the sporting scene with 
its forest setting will admit of a touch of audacity in 
dress. 

Even the true sportswoman of France does not forget 



HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHATEAUX 173 

to be coquette, and her interest in habit or shooting 
costume does not interfere with her sporting zeal. There 
are Frenchwomen who go boar hunting and wolf hunting 
with their husbands. Others, like the Baronne de 
Brandt or the Marquise de Bois-Hebert, visit the out-of- 
the-way corners of Europe in search of exciting sport, 
and a long list of Parisian society leaders like the Mar- 
quise de Beauvoir, the Comtesse de Fels, the young 
Duchesses de Luynes, de Noailles, and d'Uzes, make 
excellent records in the home forests. 

The name of d'Uzes is important in modern French 
hunting annals, though its claims do not rest on moder- 
nity. On the contrary the equipage d'Uzes stands for all 
that is traditional and historic in French venery, and the 
dowager Duchesse d'Uzes, holding fast to the customs 
and traditions of the old regime, keeps up the hunt in 
her forests as the Dues d'Uzes have kept it up through 
many a generation and many a change in the affairs of 
France. 

Sixty thousand acres of the forest of Rambouillet are 
leased by the Duchess for her hunting-grounds, and, 
though the favourite chateau of the President of France 
lies across the woodland from her own hunting chateau 
of Bonnelles, and his excellency the President of the 
French Republic may, if he chooses, shoot birds and 
rabbits in the forest, which is the property of the state, 
it is the Duchess who reigns in Rambouillet forest and 
the republican ruler may not chase the stag there, unless 
this greal lady of old France graciously extends an 
invitation to him. 



174 IN VANITY FAIR 

What has Rambouillet to do with presidents and 
republics ? It has always been the forest of kings, and 
its memories reach back through the dim years so far 
that modern history can but cling to its fingers, while old 
story and romance haunt every bosky depth and sunlit 
glade. 

It was the heart of the ancient forest of Yveline, this 
forest of Rambouillet, the country of the Druids, a place 
of mystery and of fable. Caesar tells how the Gauls 
hunted the wild bull in those forest fastnesses. Charle- 
magne went a-hunting under the great oaks and beeches, 
and by his side rode his empress, Luitgard the beautiful, 
while in their train came many a mighty warrior and 
prince; came, too, fair princesses whose names alone 
are keys to old romance, — Hiltrud and Rhodaid, Gisela 
and Theodrada and Bertha, each in robe of green velvet 
and with silken locks floating free from beneath a golden 
diadem. For the lover of pictures they still go riding 
down the forest aisles, those princesses of the far away, 
"swaying the reins with dainty finger-tips" and smiling 
on the gallants who rode beside them. 

Many a fair lady has ridden in the shades of Ram- 
bouillet, with a courtier at her bridle rein, since Charle- 
magne's day. Each king of France in turn has followed 
the stag there. Some kings have loved there, some have 
died there; some, like Louis XIV, have merely been 
bored there; but it was when Louis XIII ruled in France 
that venery flourished in its greatest pomp and glory. 
Many hundreds of oflGicials belonged to the royal hunting 
equipage in the time of this prodigal Louis, and all the 



HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHATEAUX 175 

court followed the king when, with sounding horns and 
baying hounds, he coursed through the woods of Ram- 
bouillet. 

The princes of the blood had their equipages, too, and 
there is a story of a long-ago day when three stags broke 
cover simultaneously on the sides of St. Hubert's pond, 
and behind each streamed a brilliant hunting cortege 
sporting the gay colours of a princely house. One can 
see them there on the banks of the woodland pool — the 
stags at bay, the swarming hounds, the liveried hunts- 
men, the princes and courtiers in gorgeous array, the 
background of forest green and the water mirroring the 
whole. Extravagant folly, of course, those royal hunts, 
but a brave show. Your good republican loves better 
to see the president go forth in his tweeds and his slouch 
hat, with his guides and beaters and his tweed-clad guests, 
to shoot the timid little wood creatures that are driven 
into the range of the guns and killed by thousands in the 
name of sport. It costs less than Louis' hunting, this 
democratic battue, and, to-day, the peasants of France 
have bread, — but for the lover of romance, Rambouillet 
is filled with ghosts that make a finer show than the 
estimable republican president and his equally estimable 
but far from picturesque guests. 

Pompous venery went down with all things regal in 
the Revolutionary flood, but Napoleon, ever theatrical at 
heart, appreciated the dramatic opportunities of the 
chase, and once more Rambouillet echoed to the bay of 
hounds and the call of horns, while the little great man 
rode in Charlemagne's paths. 



176 IN VANITY FAIR 

Since then, the career of hunting in France has been 
a chequered one. After the revolution of 1848, the 
forests were leased to the great nobles, but Napoleon III 
had the vast domains confiscated after his coup d'etat, 
and it w^as then that the Dues d'Uzes and de Luynes 
held a great final hunt before abandoning the forests to 
the usurper, and made a kill that is mentioned with awe 
by latter-day hunters. 

But Napoleon cared little for the chase, and in 1868 
the dukes were hunting again in their old haunts. The 
Due de Luynes died and the Due d'Uzes took over his 
pack. When he, too, went the way of all flesh, his 
widow refused to give up the famous hounds and the 
traditional equipage. She re-leased the forest, held 
tenaciously traditions of the chase as they had been 
upheld by a long line of Dues d'Uzes. While she lives, 
at least, the hounds of St. Hubert will occupy their 
kennels at La Celle les Bordes, and the red and blue and 
gold of the equipage d'Uzes will flash through the leafy 
lanes of the forest of Rambouillet. 

The Bonnelles season begins on the first of September, 
but only intimate friends and zealous sportsmen are 
gathered together in the chateau at the opening of the 
season. Later there will be guests of ceremony, royal 
visitors, and all of the gay Parisian crowd whom the 
family d'Uzes deigns to entertain. 

The dowager Duchess, grande dame of the old school, 
is mistress of the chateau, but she has able assistants in 
her daughter-in-law, the young Duchesse d'Uzes, and in 
her daughters, the great ladies of de Luynes and de 



HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHATEAUX 177 

Brissac. They fit in oddly with the venerable customs 
of Bonnelles, these typical products of a society essen- 
tially modern, but the combination of new and old 
is a piquant one, and the excessively up-to-date young 
Duchesse d'Uzes never appears to better advantage than 
when she kneels in the little church of Bonnelles on 
St. Hubert's Day, or, in bravery of blue and scarlet and 
gold, follows the hounds of Bonnelles through the forest 
of Rambouillet. 

The chateau of Bonnelles is an imposing pile set in a 
beautiful park of about two hundred acres, and furnishes 
room for many guests. Life goes to the same tune there 
as in the other chateaux during the autumn season, 
though there is a hint of old-world dignity mingled with 
the modern gaiety, and among the guests are often 
included interesting figures not familiar in the very 
modern salons of Paris. And, too, the hunting is taken 
rather more seriously at Bonnelles than at many of the 
chateaux, though even there the late season crowd gives 
itself over to frivolity rather than to sport. 

The kennels of Bonnelles are located at the farm of 
La Celle les Bordes, about five miles from the chateau, 
and the old seigneurial farmhouse is used as a hunting- 
lodge and a museum for relics and trophies of the chase. 

There are packs in France larger than that of Bon- 
nelles. The Menier family, for instance, has sixty 
couples in its kennels which are perhaps the best in 
France, while the d'Uzes pack numbers only eighty 
hounds all told, and of these only sixty run with the 
pack, — but they are aristocrats, these hounds of d'Uzes, 



178 IN VANITY FAIR 

with pedigrees that might put nine tenths of the mush- 
room nobles of France to shame. 

The hounds of St. Hubert are the oldest hunting-dogs 
of history. Before the time of Charlemagne they were 
the hunting comrades of kings, and though the pure St. 
Hubert strain has lost caste and the best dogs of the 
modern French kennels have been crossed with other 
blood, it is the old French aristocrat among hounds that 
gives to the famous French packs their long melancholy 
faces, their marvellous scent, and their melodious voices. 

The dogs of Vendee, lineal descendants of the dogs of 
St. Hubert, were first favourites in the days of Louis XI, 
and the d'Uzes hounds trace their lineage back to two 
royal dogs of that early time, — Greffier, one of the 
king's most valuable hounds, a white St. Hubert crossed 
with mastiff, and Baude, the pet hound of Anne of 
France, daughter to the king. Since that far-away day, 
the Vendean strain has been crossed with royal English 
buckhound to the great advantage of the French hound, 
say those who should know, but, despite this alien blood, 
it is the descendant of Grelfier and Baude that yelps in 
the kennels at La Celle les Bordes when the dog valets 
put the pack in leash on the morning of St. Hubert's 
Day. 

This third of November is a great day at Bonnelles, 
for the Duchess is ardent churchwoman and ardent 
patron of the chase, and on St. Hubert's Day the two 
objects of her devotion fraternize in all pomp and 
ceremony. Out from the lodge gates issues the pack, 
and with the dogs go the governor of the pack, the two 



HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHATEAUX 179 

mounted piqueurs, the two chief foresters, the two chief 
dog valets, and the lesser officials — all of whom make 
up the equipage d'Uzes. The huntsmen are in hunting 
costume of the d'Uzes colours, with hunting-horns slung 
round their necks and hunting-knives in their belts, the 
dog valets wear the red and blue without the gold lace, 
and the chief dog sports the colours of his owners. 

On they go to the little church of Bonnelles where a 
crowd is awaiting them. Outside the church there is 
a group of onlookers drawn here by curiosity to see the 
famous ceremony, but within the doors one finds a 
gathering of folk whom one remembers seeing at Long- 
champs, on the Avenue des Acacias, in the Casino at 
Trouville. The little Duchesse d'Uzes is there, charming 
in her habit and in her three-cornered hunting-hat with 
its blue and red and gold, but she is very solemn now, 
this gay little duchess, very solemn indeed; for, as we 
have said elsewhere, she is devote, and even at the 
blessing of the hounds she does not relax her pose. 

The piqueurs lead the dogs before the high altar, the 
mass of St. Hubert is said, and, as the priests lift the 
host on high, suddenly there is a carillon of bells, hunting- 
horns sound the fanfare of St. Hubert, the crowd rustles 
to its feet. Out of the church file the priests in gorgeous 
vestments and the red-robed acolytes bearing the blest 
bread of St. Hubert. The oldest priest crumbles the 
bread for the dogs, sprinkles holy water over the quiver- 
ing muzzles. There is another peal of bells, the horns 
sound gaily, the hunting folk spring to saddle, the 
guests v/ho are not to hunt climb into their traps and 



i8o IN VANITY FAIR 

automobiles, the piqueurs crack the long lashes of their 
dog whips, the hounds strain at their leashes, and the 
whole procession wends its way merrily toward the place 
chosen for the meet, — while the outsider privileged to 
witness the show rubs his eyes and hurries off to find a 
calendar, that he may see whether perchance this is the 
year of grace 1905 or an earlier and more ceremonious 
time. 

The rendezvous for the meet is at some carrefour or 
crossroads, where an old stone cross with ancient inscrip- 
tion usually marks a circular opening in the forest, and 
there one may see an amusing sight on any morning 
when the hounds are out. Eight o'clock is the rallying 
hour, and before that hour, though shreds of night 
still cling to the trees and blur the forest roads, the 
Duchess is on hand with the party from Bonnelles, to 
greet her guests. 

Up out of the mist they come, gay parties from the 
neighbouring chateaux, officers from the nearest garri- 
sons, reinforcements from Paris. Some are in hunting 
costume, some are driving smart traps, many spin up to 
the rendezvous in automobiles and the snorting and 
puffing of their machines mixes oddly with the neighing 
of horses and the restless whining of the hounds. The 
red coats of the huntsmen, the bright colours of the 
officers' uniforms, the chic costumes of the women, lend 
an aspect of gaiety to the sombre forest setting with its 
wreathing grey mist, and there is a chatter of voices, a 
ripple of laughter. 

The stag which has been tracked and located before 



HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHATEAUX i8i 

the place for the meet was appointed is reported still 
close at hand, and the master of the hunt gives the 
word. The hounds are unleashed and sent forward, 
while at the carrefour, the noise dies down to a murmur 
or an expectant hush. 

Then there is a crash in the thicket, the hounds give 
tongue, high, sweet, and clear on the crisp autumn air 
the horns sound the "Stag in view," and away goes the 
hunt, a glinting line of colour through the dull November 
woods. The dogs run close, the hunters ride hard, and 
at their head is the little Duchess, reckless, excited, 
joying in the sport, true daughter of a hunting house. 

It is easy to understand the passion for the chase, 
when one rides in the wake of the hounds through the 
haunted old forest of the Druids while the horns are 
playing the ancient hunting-airs of France and the 
hounds' sonorous voices ring full and sweet and sad — 
for there is ever a melancholy in the music when a pack 
of St. Huberts is in full cry. 

The horses stretch themselves to the chase, the tingHng 
morning air is full of wood scents, the sun is scattering 
the mist. 

Hola! Hola! Madame la Duchesse hunts the stag! 

The trembling hares and birds seek the thick covert, 
but they are safe. No presidential battue this, but 
royal sport. Madame la Duchesse hunts the stag in 
the ancient forest of kings. 



CHAPTER X 

UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 

For the gambler and the cocotte, the Riviera means 
merely Monte Carlo. The gambler is drawn by the 
lure of the green tables in the splendid Casino. The 
cocotte goes where the money-spending crowd is to be 
found, where she may show her frocks and her jewels 
and her beauty, where recklessness and extravagance 
and excitement are in the air. She gambles, too, care- 
lessly or cannily, according to her temperament, and she 
loves to make a sensation on the terrace, in the Cafe 
de Paris, at Ciro's, or best of all in the Casino, where the 
apparition that draws attention from the piles of money 
on the green felt must be startling indeed. 

Incidentally she acknowledges that there are wonder- 
ful views and dazzling sunshine and invigorating air 
outside the brilliantly lighted, overheated Casino, and 
that these things contribute to her enjoyment; but she is 
not an ardent nature lover, this Parisienne, and she 
would find the Riviera deadly dull without the life that 
centres round the gaming tables. 

Even the residential element and the smart hotel set 
of aristocratic Cannes and Anglo-American Nice, of 
Cap Martin and Beaulieu and Cimiez and Mentone, feel 
the fascination of M. Blanc's earthly paradise upon the 

182 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 183 

Monaco promontory and spend considerable time there 
in the course of the season; but for this class the social 
season is as important as the gambling, and Monte 
Carlo is but a single feature of the Riviera scheme. 

It has been said that Cannes, Nice, and Monte Carlo 
represent, respectively, the world, the flesh, and the 
devil; and the classification is roughly accurate. Cannes 
has the most exclusive social life along the coast; its 
villas are occupied by folk whose names rank high in 
the social blue-books of the European capitals; the 
registers of its hotels bristle with sounding titles and its 
swell clubs have membership lists calculated to impress 
anyone who loves a lord. The Napoule Golf Club at 
Cannes has a Russian Grand Duke for president and an 
English Duke for vice-president; and, on the links, 
counts and barons, belted earls and multi-millionaires, 
are thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. Even princes and 
potentates drive off the tees and struggle in the bunkers. 
One sees rather more of London than of Paris in the 
crowd, but there are Parisians, too, and they are even 
more English than the English in their sporting pro- 
clivities, for fashion is a more aggressive thing than 
nature. The whole atmosphere is English at Napoule. 
From the architecture of the picturesque timbered club- 
house to the h's of the servants, everything has a fine 
British flavour, and save for the frocks of the women and 
the fluent Parisian French dividing honours with English 
on the links and in the club-house, there is little to re- 
mind the guest that he is in France. 

Down in the town, and along the famous Promenade 



i84 IN VANITY FAIR 

de la Croisette, there is a different story. Here, too, a 
large percentage of the fas^fe^ionable crowd is English, 
but the setting is French where it is not Italian. The 
Croisette, the Promenade des Anglais at Nice, the ter- 
race at Monte Carlo, are three of the most beautiful, 
the most fashionable, the most amusSng promenades in 
the world, and the idler may spend many profitable hours 
upon any one of the three; but each has its distinctive 
flavour just as each of the three towns has its own local 
colour and its own crowd, though all share alike in the 
sparkling beauty of the Riviera summer land. 

Yachting is an institution even more important than 
golf in the programme of Cannes. The Cercle Nau- 
tique, one of the chief rendezvous for the society set, is 
exclusive to the last degree, and out in the beautiful 
harbour splendid sea-going yachts from all parts of 
Europe and from America are anchored during the 
season. Some of the yacht owners prefer living in 
hotels or villas during their sojourn and use the boats 
for cruising only; but more live aboard their floating 
palaces, and there is constant going and coming twixt 
yachts and quai^ to the immense entertainment of out- 
siders who get no nearer than this to the social life at 
Cannes. Carriages roll up to the landing and deposit 
wonderfully gowned women and men whose names are 
whispered knowingly by the watching throng. Launches 
are waiting to receive the load of fashion and celebrity. 
There is a tableau of coquetry and chiffons, a shuffling 
of royal highnesses and wealthy commoners, and the 
little boats move off toward the yacht, where luncheon 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 185 

will be served on deck under the awnings, to the 
accompaniment of tinkling mandolins and guitars. 

There are worse things even for royalty than to sit 
at a violet-strewn table under awnings that flap in the 
soft sea breeze of a sunshiny February day, and, in the 
intervals of a luncheon prepared by an artist for an 
epicure, to look off across dimpling blue water to a 
curving white line of shore where promenaders make 
bright impressionistic dashes of colour in the sunlight, 
and to the grove-embowered villas, the imposing, many- 
pillared hotels, the mediaeval little villages that climb 
the verdure-clad mountains behind the town. 

Cannes is lovely, — far lovelier than Nice in its 
natural scenery, but Cannes is cold to tourists, dull for 
those who have not the open sesame to its charmed 
social circle. The ordinary visitor will find Nice far 
more gay. Here, too, there is an exclusive villa and 
hotel set, but it does not dominate the situation as at 
Cannes. There is welcome and entertainment for every- 
one at Nice. On the Promenade des Anglais stroll men 
and women from all countries and all classes, and queer 
groups collect at "la potiniere," the gossip rendezvous 
which ends the promenade. The new town with its 
public parks, its fascinating shops, its luxurious hotels 
and modest hostelries, its gorgeous restaurants and its 
cheap eating-places, its clubs, its gambling, its flower 
markets, its tide of restless pleasure seekers, is as gay a 
place as the world holds when the Riviera season is at 
its height, and though one may live there cheaply or 
extravagantly, it would be difiicult to live there dully. 



i86 IN VANITY FAIR 

unless one were a hardened misanthrope; for all things 
woo to pleasant folly, and jollity is in the air. 

To stroll from one's hotel to the famous promenade 
on a bright morning is to snap one's fingers at carking 
care. The sunshine is such fluid gold as no northern 
country knows, the air is fresh, intoxicating, full of 
warring sea scents and flower perfumes, a sky wonder- 
fully soft, deeply blue is overhead, the Mediterranean 
is a marvellous changing sea of turquoise and sapphire 
and amethyst and beryl, with here and there high 
golden lights where the sun catches a ripple of foam. 
Boys and girls hold out great handfuls of big, long- 
stemmed purple violets to you and the fragrance comes 
sweet and heavy to your nostrils. Women in light 
summer frocks stroll along the broad white walk, stop- 
ping to chat with friends; on the roadway which the 
promenade borders, roll luxurious private carriages, 
smart dog-carts, hired fiacres, hotel wagons, all loaded 
with smiling folk, for one smiles perforce in this world 
of sunshine and flowers and laughter. 

On the inland side of the roadway is a Hne of hotels 
and villas and cafes and shops, with tropical gardens 
breaking the line of gleaming white buildings; and in 
those shops one may find the best that European 
merchants have to off'er to extravagant womankind; 
for the famous jewellers and milliners and dressmakers 
of Paris, London, and Vienna have branch establish- 
ments here, and the proprietors of the great houses 
often spend the season in villas at Nice or Monte 
Carlo and oversee in person their lively Riviera trade. 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 187 

Paquin, Beer, Doeuillet, and their peers are familiar 
figures at Nice and Monte Carlo; and these mighty 
ones of the fashion world may well feel, with a glow 
of satisfaction, that they are responsible for much of 
the glittering show that passes in review under their 
critical eyes. 

Nice is not given over wholly to fresh air and 
promenading. 

Down in the Casino of the jetty, a paviHon of many 
minarets which opens off from the promenade and 
under whose foundations the sea washes listlessly, there 
is gambling — trente et quarante, roulette, and, in the 
more exclusive club-rooms to which one is admitted 
only by card, baccarat; but gambling is an incident at 
Nice. All things save gambling are incidental at Monte 
Carlo, and while a host of folk live in Nice without playing 
atthe jetty Casino or the municipal Casino, but few visitors 
to Monte Carlo resist the fascination of the gaming 
tables. There is always a crowd at the jetty Casino 
after luncheon, lounging, gossiping, gaming, listening to 
the excellent orchestra; and the crowd about the gam- 
bling tables is the mixed and motley crowd one always 
finds in such a situation, but there are fewer smart folk 
at the trente et quarante and roulette tables than one 
sees at corresponding tables in Monte Carlo. The 
fashionables of Nice choose the baccarat club-rooms for 
their rendezvous, and it is there that you must go to 
see modish women and well-known men gossiping, 
flirting, and playing high. 

There is a popular restaurant adjoining the gambling 



i88 IN VANITY FAIR 

rooms, — a gorgeous restaurant, brilliant with scarlet 
lacquer and Chinese decorations, though chop suey is 
not on the menu, — and many of the baccarat players 
dine or sup there; but there are so many places in which 
to lunch or dine or sup in Nice that one may find a 
meal to suit any palate, and a price to suit any purse. 

The Helder has the same proprietor as Armenonville 
and the Cafe de Paris, and much the same crowd. 
The Regence is the Helder's great rival, and after these 
comes a long line of town restaurants, each with its 
individual claim upon the diner's attention, while out 
on the hills and all along the coast are famous hotel 
restaurants and cafes to which the gay Nicois resort. 

There is tea-drinking, too, and the places where 
women flock at the tea hour are many, but while my 
lady of aristocratic Cannes is likely to drink her tea at 
the Cercle Nautique or in some other exclusive haunt, 
Madame of Nice frequents tea-rooms such as those of 
Paris; and tea hour at a place like Vogades offers an 
interesting study in femininity, though the crowd is 
frightfully mixed and, sometimes, unconscionably gay. 

It is during carnival time that gaiety becomes a trifle 
furious at Vogades. The regular winter visitors and 
residents of Nice frown upon King Carnival and dread 
his advent; but for the transient visitor the show is an 
amusing one and the common folk of Nice throw them- 
selves into the celebration with a gay abandon that 
sometimes approaches objectionable license. Who cares 
whether a few fastidious critics are holding aloof from 
carnival gaieties when ninety per cent of the motley 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 189 

populace of Nice Is eating, drinking, dancing, and making 
merry, when fun and folly are running riot, when all 
the town is ablaze with garlands of electric lights and 
artificial flowers, when confetti is raining through the 
air and grotesque figures fill the streets. 

Vulgar, of course. All carnivals are vulgar and the 
line between mirth and horse-play is easily crossed, but 
it is a pity not to see the carnival at Nice at least once, 
and not to enter into the spirit of the thing, without a 
handicap of aristocratic prejudices. The age of spon- 
taneous mummery is past and carnival foolery has a 
strained and artificial note in this self-conscious day, 
but one may be merry in Nice when King Carnival sits 
enthroned and a multitude, hiding its irresponsibility 
behind masks, gives itself up to folly. 

All through the season there are fetes in Nice. The 
Battle of Flowers is more like the real thing than is the 
Parisian imitation; the Corso Automobile Fleuri brings 
out a brave array of flower-decorated automobiles; the 
children's flower fete is the prettiest thing of its kind in 
Europe; and there is a water fete in the bay of Ville- 
franche, where flower-decorated boats and floats loaded 
with musicians and merry-makers swarm on the blue 
water, and flower battles rage amid music and laughter 
and the murmur of the waves. Grim war-vessels are 
usually lying in the harbour and the revellers row out to 
pelt the monsters derisively with flowers and jests, and 
to aim violet bunches impartially at the cannon's mouth 
and the ranking officer's head. 

Yes, Nice is gay, — absurdly gay; and if, at its gayest. 



190 IN VANITY FAIR 

it is not smart, still one will see the loveliest of Parisian 
toilettes in the restaurants and the Casino, and on the 
promenade. 

There are lovely villas in Nice, hidden away, even in 
the more crowded parts of the town, among palms and 
aloes and banana trees and eucalyptus, and gay with 
yellow mimosa and other flowering thingswhile behind the 
town on the hillsides are villas lovelier still, gleaming 
white amid groves of orange and lemon trees and trop- 
ical vegetation, and overlooking shore and sea. Wher- 
ever there is space for them flowers grow, and every 
breath of air is sweet-scented. In the distance, beyond 
the grey-green slopes where the olives thrive, are misty, 
snow-capped mountains, and far away along the coast 
stretches the white thread of the Corniche road, that 
road of marvellous views and picturesque surprises, 
which is the heart's delight of the motor maniacs on the 
Riviera. 

Motoring is a passion with the Riviera crowd as with 
every holiday crowd to-day, and though many of the 
roads are too steep and narrow and rugged for motors, 
or even for comfortable driving, the few that are prac- 
ticable are beautiful enough not to grow monotonous. 
From one resort to another, all along the coast, the 
automobiles go scudding, and even the steep hills of 
Monte Carlo swarm with pufiing cars. A little danger 
more or less makes small impression upon the Monte 
Carlo crowd. Skidding recklessly down hill is, figura- 
tively speaking, the metier of so many of the throng that 
haunts the Casino and fills the great hotels. 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 191 

Life at Monte Carlo is essentially sensational. A 
continual whirl of excitement seems to be the ideal of 
the habitue, and the class that centres there spends 
money recklessly, without reserve and without calcula- 
tion. There are gamblers who haven't the money to 
spend; but they live cheaply at some one of the near-by 
resorts, where they may lose themselves between Casino 
hours, and in the little town of fine hotels and cafes and 
shops which clings to the skirts of the Casino, life goes 
to a merry tune. Perhaps the unwholesome fever of 
the gaming rooms infects the district; but, whatever the 
cause, Monte Carlo sees little of the sanely joyous life 
that may be found at other Riviera resorts. Everything 
is brilliant, luxurious, dramatic, but of restfulness and 
simple pleasure the beautiful spot knows nothing, 
and though, for a few days, even the fastidious traveller 
may be well amused there, for a longer stay it is wise 
to go outside of the miasmic circle. 

The incongruity between drama and setting is one of the 
most striking things about the place, though familiarity 
dulls the first swift impression of the contrast. If ever 
man diverted God-given beauty to the devil's uses, he has 
done it there upon the Monaco shore, and the serpent 
was no more out of place in Paradise than is a gambling 
Casino on that picturesque promontory overlooking the 
Mediterranean — but the daughters of Eve have smiled 
upon the Casino as their ancestors smiled upon the 
serpent, and though their gambling has been for smaller 
stakes than hers, they have made a somewhat spectac- 
ular record of their own. The feminine element at 



192 IN VANITY FAIR 

Monte Carlo is one of the most characteristic and 
dramatic features of the resort. Nowhere else in the 
world will one see women of all classes gambling openly 
and heavily; nowhere else are the alpha and omega of 
feminine folly so sharply and obviously contrasted — 
and so gaily and recklessly ignored. Around the tables, 
from opening until closing hour, crowd women dere- 
licts; each train that stops at the station below the 
wonderful terraces brings more. The veriest ingenue 
might read the stories of wreck and disaster, yet the 
warning makes not the faintest impression upon the fair 
feminine craft steering head on toward the rocks. 

How can Fifi of the wonderful frocks and jewels 
guess that she will lose once too often at the little 
green tables, that the day of adorers ready and eager 
to pay her losses will pass, that youth and beauty 
will make way for such shrivelled and haggard age as 
that of the painted and bedizened harpies who haunt 
the gaming rooms, staking their few francs and watch- 
ing for opportunities of making way with the stakes 
of other players. 

For the average casual visitor to Monte Carlo, these 
hags of the Casino are among the sharpest and cleanest 
cut of first impressions. Later one grows used to them, 
ignores them, allows them to take their places in the 
shifting human panorama that is in its way as fascinating 
as the roulette and trente et quarante which brings the 
crowd together; but at first these hideous old women of 
the furrowed faces plastered with rouge, of the furtive 
eyes, of the loose lips, the trembling claw-like hands, 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 193 

the dirty laces, the false jewels, have a hateful fascina- 
tion, obscure all other impressions. 

There are many of the harpies living entirely by 
fraud, and though croupiers, detectives, and attendants 
know some of them and suspect others, it seems impos- 
sible to keep them out of the Casino. Occasionally the 
doors are barred to someone, but under the present 
administration admission rules are more lax than they 
were in the old days, and the whole character of the 
Casino crowd, while perhaps not more vicious, is cer- 
tainly more vulgar than it was under M. Blanc's regime. 

The system of the women thieves is a simple one. 
An excited crowd surrounds a roulette table; many of 
the players know comparatively little about the game. 
The stakes are placed, money is lost or won, and raked 
in or distributed, in less time than is required for the 
telling of it. While a novice hesitates, wondering whether 
the money on a certain number is really hers, a yellow 
hand reaches across her shoulder and snatches the 
stakes. Even if the victim is sure that she knows the 
offender, she hesitates to make a scene, to be implicated 
in a gaming-room scandal, and the thief audaciously 
counts upon this immunity. Sometimes, however, an 
attendant sees the transaction and lays a firm hand upon 
the old woman's arm before she can get away. Or 
perhaps the croupier of the immobile face and the eyes 
that see all things notices the hand closing upon money 
to which it has no right and brings his rake down sharply 
upon the thin wrist in time to stop the move. 

There are other wrinkled and haggard old women in 



194 IN VANITY FAIR 

the Casino crowd, — women less contemptible, more 
pitiable, but unpleasant sights for all that. They come 
to the gambling rooms to play, not to steal; but the 
gambling fever has burned out all that was pure wom- 
anly in them and nothing is left to them in life save the 
vice they hug to their hearts. Some of them have been 
playing there ever since the first years of the Casino, 
missing never a day from the opening to the closing of 
the season, and usually staying all day long in the hot, 
ill-ventilated rooms. They have but little money and 
they play cautiously, watching the run of the game, 
making innumerable notes in little note-books, taking 
no great risks. 

One Russian princess is among the number. Old 
habitues of the Casino say that when she came there 
first, twenty-five years ago, she was beautiful, superbly 
gowned, magnificently bejewelled, but gaming is in the 
Russian blood and the princess was a born gambler. 
She squandered her fortune, pawned her jewels, sank 
lower and lower in the gambling mire, gave herself up 
more and more unreservedly to her absorbing passion. 
To-day, she lives in a cheap pension at Mentone and 
belongs to the class known in Monte Carlo as "the 
bread-winners,'' — a class of gamblers making a regular 
daily visit to the Casino, playing until perhaps ten, 
fifteen, or fifty francs ahead of the bank, and then leaving. 
If one is content with making a mere daily pittance out 
of the tables, the thing can be surely and systematically 
done; and, every morning the first train brings an army of 
these bread-winners, together with hundreds of bolder 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 195 

gamblers. There is always a crowd waiting at the 
Casino doors when they are opened, always a wild 
scramble for the chairs around the tables; and, once 
comfortably seated, these early comers are usually good 
for the day, or at least until dinner-time. They are the 
most economical and persistent, though not the most 
profitable, of the Casino's patrons. 

Fashionable folk favour shorter gambling hours. If 
Madame is staying at one of the Monte Carlo hotels, — 
at the famous Hotel de Paris, let us say, a hotel beloved 
of Parisian demi-mondaines and their satellites, but 
patronized by cosmopolitan great folk as well, — she 
arises very late and has her breakfast on a terrace with 
a sunlit sapphire sea stretching out before her and an 
awning sheltering her from the too ardent sun. The 
chances are that it is a delectable breakfast, for there is 
good cooking in Monte Carlo. The prodigal crowd 
that spends its money there demands high living, and the 
Cafe de Paris, with its Indian interior and its famous 
grill-room, has seen gay dinners and suppers in its time 
and has appropriated a generous share of the winnings 
of lucky gamblers, beside helping the Casino to rid the 
unlucky player of his money. 

Ciro's, too, has played its part in nineteenth-century 
romance and scandal and had its share in the Monte 
Carlo harvest. The proprietor, an energetic and diplo- 
matic Italian, has made a large fortune and deserves it, 
for he can produce for his cosmopolitan patrons on 
demand any dish from buckwheat cakes to the most 
delicate frittura, and any drink from vodka to Jersey 



196 IN VANITY FAIR 

apple-jack. Perhaps that is stating the case too strongly, 
but he is a remarkable restaurateur, this Ciro. 

These are but two restaurants of the many; and if one 
tires of the town, there is the mountain restaurant at 
la Turbie, to which one climbs by a funicular and where 
the air is keen and cool from the snowy mountain peaks. 
Even the view alone is worth the trip to la Turbie; 
for, from the restaurant terrace, one looks down upon 
Monaco with its palace and cathedral, upon Monte 
Carlo with its snowy villas and Casino amid their 
groves and gardens, and upon miles of summer sea. 

When dejeuner is ended there are many ways of passing 
what is left of the day. The terrace is thronged during the 
late morning hours, and if one has breakfasted early 
enough there is time for a stroll there — a stroll that calls 
for a smart costume, if one makes pretence of being 
truly chic. Up and down the beautiful promenade 
saunter the idlers — a crowd as interesting and as mixed 
as that of the promenade des Anglais or the promenade 
at Trouville. Past they file, rosy-cheeked, middle-class 
Englishwomen in ill-fitting frocks, consummately modish 
Parisiennes, notorious in Monte Carlo as at home, fat 
German Jewesses, American girls chaperoning their 
tired and patient parents, French, American, and Eng- 
lish actresses, great ladies from all countries, men of 
every type, from hard-faced chevalier d'industrie to 
reigning monarch, from gilded youth to elderly roue. 

One sees many a new fashion note on the Monte 
Carlo terrace, and, later, costumes still more chic are in 
evidence at the Casino concert, to which come music 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 197 

lovers from all the neighbouring resorts, for the Monte 
Carlo orchestra is one of the best in Europe and even 
moralists v^ho have serious scruples to forbid their 
gambling do not hesitate to take advantage of the con- 
certs provided by the profits of the tables. 

For the sporting contingent there is driving and 
motoring during the early afternoon, before the chill 
creeps into the air; and on the terrace overlooking the 
grounds of the International Pigeon Shooting Club 
there is always a crowd watching the shooting below. 
Butchery rather than sport, this pigeon shooting, but 
the Monte Carlo club is the most famous in the world 
and draws the crack shots from all countries. Betting 
runs high among the sportsmen and the onlookers, and 
the club events are a great source of entertainment to 
those who have heart and stomach for such sport. 

After the tea hour, the Casino begins to fill with the 
crowd that is its mainstay, the high-playing, heavily 
plunging, extravagant crowd, wilHng to buy excitement 
at any price, and some of the heaviest gambling is done 
in those hours just before the dinner. The hush grows 
more pronounced, more oppressive, and the croupier's 
monotonous voice sounds more clearly in its maddening 
iteration, ^* Messieurs, Mesdames, faites vos jeux. — Les 
jeux sont faits. Rien ne va plus." 

Every seat at the tables is filled, crowds are clustering 
behind the chairs, leaning forward to play, watching 
with excitement an unusual run of good or bad luck, 
but quiet, intent, absorbed. There is never noise and 
confusion, never an outbreak that can create scandal. 



198 IN VANITY FAIR 

A battalion of official employees attends to that, and 
quickly, effectually suppresses any objectionable scene. 

Monsieur Francois Blanc, who was responsible for 
Monte Carlo, was fond of saying that he had made and 
kept the place "absolutely respectable." He is dead 
now, this M. Blanc, but before he died he built a 
cathedral not far from his Casino, and in a mortuary 
chapel of the cathedral reposes the old Prince of Monaco, 
who granted to M. Blanc the rights that made Monte 
Carlo possible. 

The scoffer smiles at that cathedral; and yet M. 
Blanc offered it to le bon Dieu in all sincerity. He was 
a quiet, unpretentious little man, devoted to his family, 
charitable, abstemious in his habits, playing no game 
save billiards, gambling not at all, a good man so far as 
personal life went, and without scruples concerning his 
gambling paradise. He insisted rigidly that play at 
Monte Carlo should be under absolutely fair conditions. 
As for running a great gambling establishment — it was 
a business like another. He was not ashamed of his 
metier and allowed no threats nor pleas nor argument to 
disturb him. Men and women would gamble. — Eh 
bien, here was a beautiful place in which they might 
indulge their propensity without fear of dishonest treat- 
ment. If they ruined themselves, if they commited 
suicide, — that was their affair. They would have done 
the same thing elsewhere and he would have preferred 
their doing it elsewhere, for suicides and scenes inter- 
fered somewhat with prosperous business. A host of 
detectives and attendants was employed by M. Blanc to 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 199 

prevent suicide or hush it up if it occurred, and an 
official department was established for the purpose of 
furnishing unlucky patrons of the Casino with money 
enough to betake themselves elsewhere. Ruined gam- 
blers were eloquently urged not to die upon the premises. 
Railroad tickets and certain sums of money were sup- 
plied to worthy applicants to whose hard luck and 
financial collapse officials of the gambling rooms could 
testify. The system was not, however, purely charitable, 
— M. Blanc did not believe in pauperizing the poor. 
An I. O. U. was accepted in exchange for funds supplied, 
and it was understood that this note must be met before 
the holder could ever again be admitted to the Casino. 
Some time ago statistics showed that forty thousand 
pounds had been distributed by this department of ways 
and means — but that thirty thousand pounds had been 
repaid. From which one may argue a large proportion 
of human integrity or of gambling mania, as one is 
optimist or cynic. 

M. Blanc had made his fortune in administering the 
gambling affairs of Homburg and Baden Baden. When 
Germany shut down upon gambling he looked about 
for a place in which he could establish a gambling resort 
without fear of interference from a paternal government, 
and his shrewd eye fell upon the little principality of 
Monaco. His Royal Highness the Prince of Monaco, 
who was absolute ruler of this little kingdom three and a 
half miles long by one mile wide, came of an illus- 
trious line of gentlemanly pirates, and since piracy 
had fallen from favour in the Mediterranean, his revenues 



200 IN VANITY FAIR 

were not so princely as his title and palace. He was 
pleased to make over his piratical rights to M. Blanc in 
consideration of an annual subsidy which gave him an 
income really royal. Incidentally the Frenchman agreed 
to attend to the municipal affairs of the province, to free 
the subjects of the Prince from all taxation, and to 
guarantee that no one of them should be allowed to 
enter the Casino. An excellent bargain from a material 
view-point the old Prince made. His successor, Albert I, 
the scholarly scientist and Prince who now lives in the 
ancient palace of the Grimaldis, where the little town 
of Monaco huddles on its isolated rock, facing the 
Monte Carlo fairyland across the port of Condamine, has 
scruples concerning the source of his income, it is said, 
but the Monte Carlo lease, which is held by a syndicate 
since M. Blanc's death, has until 1913 to run. Then we 
shall see what we shall see. The Prince, who is a 
French nobleman, has French revenues which would 
keep him from penury, and he is a man of simple tastes; 
but it would be a sacrifice for a saint to give up a royal 
fortune for a scruple, and one can hardly expect a worldly 
monarch to court canonization in such fashion. 

Once in possession of his promontory, M. Blanc pro- 
ceeded to spend a fortune upon it. A gambling enter- 
prise had already been tried there but had failed, partly 
through mismanagement, partly because the place was 
inaccessible, visitors being obliged to arrive by water 
and be taken ashore in small boats. 

The natural location was, however, beautiful beyond 
description, and M. Blanc had the genius to appreciate 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 201 

his opportunity. The architect of the Paris Opera 
House was called into consultation and a five-million- 
dollar Casino was built. Everything that art and money 
could do to make the gambling rooms, the corridors, the 
concert hall, the theatre, luxurious and beautiful was 
done. Splendid terraces, gardens, fountains, were added; 
a great reading-room was supplied with the most com- 
plete collection of periodical literature in the world; the 
finest of classical concerts were given in the concert-hall; 
the best artists of Paris were engaged to present the 
latest and most successful Parisian plays in the little 
jewel of a theatre; capitalists were induced to build a 
railroad to the place and a big elevator was constructed 
to carry up from the trains all who did not care to 
climb the terraces; a luxurious cafe was installed in 
the Casino grounds. 

M.,. Blanc was a frugal man, but he could scatter 
money like chaff for a purpose, and he fulfilled his pur- 
pose. The fame of Monte Carlo spread far and wide. 
Visitors flocked there from all over the world, and the 
time was short indeed before the originator's money had 
returned to him with interest many times compounded. 
To-day, after the income of the Prince is handed over 
to him, after the taxes of the principality are settled, after 
the immense staff of official employees, the musicians, the 
artists, are paid, after the repairs and running expenses 
have been provided for, the stockholders divide an annual 
profit of from two million to two million five hundred 
thousand dollars. A profitable business, as M. Blanc 
foresaw when he made his investment. 



202 IN VANITY FAIR 

The syndicate which now holds the lease and manages 
the palace follows as far as possible the system of M. 
Blanc, but the body has not the old manager's genius 
for doing the wrong thing in exactly the right way, and 
the place was not what it once was. M. Blanc had 
made the Casino a club and so retained the right to 
bar or eject whom he would. In the old days the age 
limit was strictly observed. Now one sees mere boys 
and girls at the tables. For a long time a frock coat and 
high hat in the daytime, and evening dress after six, were 
de rigeur, and women's toilettes were carefully con- 
sidered. Lord Salisbury and his wife were once refused 
admission at the door because the Premier wore a 
shabby old felt hat and tweeds, and a celebrated actress 
who once appeared in a highly aesthetic costume was 
told she could enter after going home and changing 
her deshabille. 

To-day, everything from dress clothes to bicycle cos- 
tume is permissible in the Casino, though a careful 
toilet is the rule, and a host of very shabby and dis- 
reputable gamblers mingles with the more aristocratic 
set. The crowd is more sordid, more vulgar, less chic 
than of old. Fewer high-class English and French 
patronize the tables, and the German Jews who have 
taken their places have not improved the general tone of 
the throng. 

But all this the ordinary visitor does not know, and 
even now the place is as fascinating as it is unwholesome. 

In the evening come the most brilliant and spectacular 
hours of the Casino day. Then one sees the exquisite 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 203 

frocks, the superb jewels, the celebrities of good and 
ill repute. The women wear elaborate evening dress, 
usually topped by a picture hat, and though many 
mondaines avoid conspicuous Casino toilettes, the demi- 
mondaines vie with each other in gorgeousness of attire. 

Some of these rivalries have afforded tremendous enter- 
tainment for onlookers who appreciated the moves in 
the feminine game. Liane de Pougy and la belle Otero, 
for example, have contributed largely to the Monte Carlo 
amusement programme during recent years. Deadly 
rivals these two, who fought their battles wherever they 
went in Fashion's train, in Paris, at Trouville, at Monte 
Carlo. Both were lionnes of the most formidable type, 
leaving a wake of ruin and disaster behind them, devour- 
ing fortunes with Brobdignagian voracity, plunging into 
the maddest extravagances. Men raved over their 
beauty, though cooler-headed critics insisted that Otero 
was only a rather coarse and common Spanish type, 
with bold, staring eyes, a cruel, sensuous mouth, and a 
good figure, while de Pougy, with her long neck and 
cat-in-the-cream expression, deserved no beauty prize. 

The toilettes of the two were legion and beggared 
description. Their jewels were a proverb. 

One night, at the Casino, one of the rivals appeared 
wearing all her jewels, and even the maddest gambler 
stopped his play to look at her. From head to foot she 
was ablaze with precious stones of the finest water, 
diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls, 
gleaming on throat and arms and fingers and in her 
hair, covering her bodice, fastened upon her skirts. 



204 IN VANITY FAIR 

The achievement was the sensation of the season. 
Nothing else was spoken of the next day, and triumph 
was written large upon the face of the wearer of the 
jewels; but she had reckoned without her host. The 
Casino was more crowded than usual on the following 
evening. Curious folk went to see how one beauty 
would carry off her victory and how the other would 
accept her defeat. The triumphant one was handsome, 
beaming, self-satisfied, but her rival was late in coming 
and gossip whispered that something dramatic was to 
be expected. 

It occurred. 

Down the length of the gambling rooms walked the 
woman for whom the crowd was waiting. She was 
perfectly gowned, but with an exquisite and elaborate 
simplicity, with a good taste beyond question. Behind 
her came her maid decked in jewels from coiffure to 
slipper toe, enjoying her part in the comedy, yet awed 
by the fortune she carried with her. 

No words were necessary, the most unlettered could 
read the retort. Madame also had jewels — as many 
and as fine as those of her rival. If anyone doubted 
that fact, let him observe. But as for wearing all 
one's jewels at once, — impossible for a woman of 
taste! 

The reign of la belle Otero is over. Liane de Pougy's 
tenure of favour is very uncertain, but they have furnished 
the Riviera with a wealth of gossip in their time. Monte 
Carlo would miss their annual duel, were there not 
younger favourites, as beautiful and as shameless, to air 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 205 

their toilettes and jewels and jealousies in M. Blanc's 
"absolutely respectable" rendezvous. 

Few women go to Monte Carlo without trying their 
luck at the tables, though the fall from grace on the part 
of the ordinary tourist may mean only a few francs lost 
or won. Starry-eyed young girls, staid matrons with 
respectability stamped upon their brows, stern, elderly 
spinsters — all may be seen at the roulette board where 
small stakes may be hazarded; but they are the novices, 
the transients who are tasting the new experience with 
a fearful joy. The seasoned and systematic woman 
gambler is another thing. So is the reckless woman who 
does not bother about system and risks large sums as 
lightly as she waves her fan, and with far less calculation. 

Langtry belonged to this last class. In her heyday, 
one might see her, charmingly gowned, radiantly beau- 
tiful, twisting up thousand-franc notes and tossing them 
on the table to lie wherever they might fall, losing as 
carelessly as she won and far more often than she won. 

Otero and de Pougy, and many of their guild, are of 
the shrewd and canny type, gambling to win, and taking 
the game of chance seriously, though worrying little over 
losses and throwing away winnings with both hands. 
The brilliant jewelry shops and the Mont de Piete of 
Monte Carlo are equally prosperous. The winners buy 
jewels, the losers pawn them, — but, on the whole, it is 
the men who gamble heavily. Three fourths of the 
women who have money enough to play extravagantly 
care more about what they wear to the Casino than 
about what they win or lose, would rather win at hearts 



2o6 IN VANITY FAIR 

and chifFons than at roulette. Occasionally a woman, 
like the old Russian princess, ruins herself dramatically 
at Monte Carlo, but more often it is the petty woman 
gambler who comes to grief — the woman who has only 
a little money and no resources to draw upon when that 
little is swallowed up. Not long ago six little American 
chorus girls, who had heard much about the gaiety and 
extravagance of Monte Carlo, and had conceived the 
idea that between luck at gambling and luck at love a 
half-dozen pretty Americans might corner considerable 
of the gaiety and of the wherewithal for extravagance, 
went down to the Riviera and tried trente et quarante. 

A few weeks later, when they were penniless, miserable, 
absolutely stranded, without money either to stay or to 
go home, Sybil Sanderson heard of their plight and 
played good angel for the six homesick, disillusioned, 
singed little moths. The flames are cruel at Monte 
Carlo. 

But it is the man who really supports the Casino, the 
man who squanders fortunes at the tables, the man who 
evolves infallible systems, who gives himself up utterly 
to the gambling, who commits suicide on the terrace, or 
breaks the bank. 

Suicides are few, and the few are carefully covered up, 
concealed. The management even denies that they 
occur, but ugly rumours are persistent and many seem 
to be backed by facts. Detectives are eternally vigilant 
to suppress scandal. They rise from the ground, they 
fall from the trees, they follow the lucky winner to his 
hotel or train in order to see that he is not waylaid and 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 207 

murdered or robbed by thugs, as has happened before 
now, they shadow desperate losers and prevent ugly 
scenes, they instruct the penniless where to find the 
benevolent gentleman who is willing to furnish trans- 
portation away from Monte Carlo for the human sponge 
that has been squeezed dry. 

The bank breakers are even fewer than the suicides. 
In the old days, a certain amount of money was allowed 
to each table for one day. If the bank lost that amount, 
the table went out of commission for the rest of the 
session; but now, if a lucky player breaks the bank, it 
means only a wait of a few minutes until a new package 
of money can be brought from the vaults. When the 
money arrives, play goes on. 

Charles Wells, an engineer, was the man whose spec- 
tacular winnings inspired the song concerning "the man 
who broke the bank at Monte Carlo," but many another 
man has done the thing and some of them have repeated 
the operation several times. There, for instance, was 
Garcia, who broke the bank again and again and was 
a nine days' wonder at Monte Carlo. He died a wretched 
death in the slums of Paris, that lucky Garcia. 

And there was a New York salesman among the bank 
breakers. Some of the older New York business men 
may remember him, for he was a popular fellow and he 
cut a wide swath in Europe. First he broke the bank 
at Monte Carlo, — broke it with fine spirit and eclat and 
was the envied hero of the hour. Then he went to 
Paris and opened a gambling place that quickly became 
famous. Baccarat was the game, and the New Yorker's 



2o8 IN VANITY FAIR 

luck held. He could not lose. His name was known 
all over Europe. Paris gave him the title of Le Roi 
Baccarat, and in the morning papers the latest doings 
of the baccarat king were as much a matter of course as 
the stock market reports. 

Of course the luck changed. It always does. One 
day the baccarat king began to lose, and he was as 
persistent in losing as he had been in winning. The 
close air of the gambling rooms had affected his lungs 
and his health went with his money. One of the many 
women who had loved him in his brilliant day, took 
him, a consumptive pauper, to her lodgings, and gave 
him shelter, food, and care, but she had no money to do 
more. Finally several of the man's old friends and 
business associates in New York heard of his condition 
and sent money to bring him home. He came, a dying 
man, and a little later the same friends contributed the 
money to bury him. 

Histories of that sort are common among the men 
who have broken the bank at Monte Carlo. 

As for the Casino management, it does not lament 
when some one breaks the bank.- Far from it. Such 
a run of luck advertises the fairness of the game and 
encourages gamblers. The syndicate is frankly pleased 
when anyone wins in spectacular fashion — or in any 
fashion whatsoever, for winning only fans the gambling 
fever and in the end it is always the bank that wins. 
The old saying launched in M. Blanc's day is true: 
^'C'est encore rouge qui perd, et encore noir, mais 
toujours Blanc qui gagne." 



UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 209 

The bank of Monte Carlo is honest as the Bank of 
England. No hint of trickery has ever been associated 
with it, but outside the Casino there are gambling resorts 
of a different character. It is said that more money is 
lost at the private gambling clubs of Nice in a night than 
at Monte Carlo in a v^eek; and whether or not this is 
true, it is certain that more men are ruined in these 
outside gambling hells than in the Casino. The game 
at the latter place is fair; only cash stakes are allowed; 
there is no bar and anyone drunk enough to make a 
scene is expelled. At many of the private clubs the 
play is dishonest; I. O. U's are accepted; and a 
drunken fool may gamble away not only all he has 
with him, but all he has elsewhere or ever expects 
to have, and more. Not all of the suicides along the 
Riviera are due to M. Blanc's gambling palace. 

It is difficult to keep away from the subject of the 
gambling when one talks of Monte Carlo. A famous 
show of frocks and jewels and women is on view there; 
the fashions of the coming summer are launched there; 
the social game is played with verve and zest there; 
But, at a distance, one remembeirs rather the crowd 
around the green tables under the great chandeliers, 
the flushed faces, the twitching mouths, the trembling 
hands, and the uncanny, oppressive, breathless hush that 
follows the croupier's "Rien ne va plus." 



CHAPTER XI 

LES AMERICAINES 

Many Americans swing round the calendar with the 
fashionable Parisiennes. Some of them, having married 
into the innermost circles of the French aristocracy, 
belong to the most exclusive French set and jealously 
guard their privileges, associating little with their own 
countrywomen of the American colony, for there is a 
world of difference between the Parisian social standing 
of the American woman who has married into an aristo- 
cratic French family and the American woman of the 
American colony. The latter may be brilliant, popular, 
and rich, may entertain extravagantly and live in a 
whirl of gaiety; but, as a rule, there are certain Parisian 
salons to which she has not the entree, certain doors 
stubbornly closed to her, despite her beauty and wit 
and wealth. There are exceptions, of course, but, gen- 
erally speaking, the hostess of the American colony does 
not have upon her visiting list the names of the greatest 
ladies of the French set. Her dinners cost more than 
any given in the Faubourg St. Germain, her cotillion 
favours are a nine days' Parisian wonder, she draws 
round her a wealthy and amusing circle of fellow Amer- 
icans and foreigners, but she has not the open sesame 
to French doors which other Americans have gained by 

2IO 



LES AMERICAINES 211 

marriage, — paying dearly sometimes for their social 
privileges. 

The American colony is a shifting, transient thing, 
changing continually, yet always the same in its general 
character and always an important factor in Parisian life. 
Americans living in other parts of Europe drift into 
Paris at some seasons to swell this colony, or join the 
crowd on the Riviera or on the Normandy coast; and 
then there is always the casual visitor, the American who 
runs over to Europe for frocks or frivolity, but makes 
no pretence of living abroad. 

Among this last group are a majority of the smartest 
folk of American society, and a number of these passing 
visitors are accorded social honours seldom granted to 
the resident American in Paris. It is among these 
women, too, that the Parisian tradesmen find their most 
profitable patrons, and a large percentage of the loveliest 
confections turned out by the great dressmakers of Paris 
is carried away in the trunks of private American 
customers. 

It would be hard to overestimate the importance of 
the American woman in the Parisian fashion scheme. 
She pays out more money to the famous dressmakers 
and milliners of Paris than all of their other private 
patrons taken together; and, even when she herself is 
not of the class that does its shopping in Paris, still she 
swells the receipts of Paris tradesfolk, for in order to 
satisfy her tastes an army of American buyers goes to 
Paris twice a year and carries home French materials, 
French models, and French ideas, which will be incor- 



212 IN VANITY FAIR 

porated Into the output of all American caterers to 
woman's vanity, from the manufacturer of inexpensive, 
ready-made frocks to the swellest of New York dress- 
makers. 

In 1893, Worth went to the trouble of looking up 
Parisian dress statistics and found that the value of the 
material consumed annually in France for women's dress 
was two hundred million dollars; that one hundred 
million dollars' worth was supplied to the Parisian dress- 
makers and that the American share of the whole 
amount was more than that of all other countries counted 
together. The statistics also showed that fully one half 
of the Parisian dressmakers' sales was carried off in 
personal luggage, — which, of course, means private 
sales. 

All this figuring was done thirteen years ago and at 
that time the sales had increased two hundred and fifty 
per cent within twenty-five years. Since then the rate 
of increase has been even greater. American extrava- 
gance in dress has advanced in great leaps, and M. 
Worth's figures would doubtless seem small if compared 
with to-day's statistics. 

The dressmakers of Paris are, of course, disinclined 
to give information concerning the amounts of money 
paid to them by their private customers, but they are 
willing enough to give estimates without names attached, 
and the extravagant expenditures of certain wealthy 
Americans are common gossip in the dressmaking circles 
of Paris. 

The most important single order for dress ever placed 



LES AMERICAINES 213 

in Europe came from an American source, but, for 
certain private reasons, it did not find its way to Paris, 
and there was weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, 
mixed with the buzzing gossip of the Parisian ateHers 
when the facts concerning this famous order leaked 
out. 

A bride's trousseau was the occasion for the spec- 
tacular outlay, and Drecoll of Vienna was the lucky 
dressmaker. Just what the bill amounted to, the firm 
has never been indiscreet enough to confess; but well 
authenticated reports place the sum at two hundred 
thousand dollars, and rumour runs it up to two hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars. 

The items were enumerated in the order, but carte 
blanche was given in every case and all that was de- 
manded was that each garment should be as nearly 
perfect for its purpose as the firm could make it. Life 
has nothing better to offer an artist dressmaker than an 
opportunity such as this, and the Viennese firm endeav- 
oured to live up to the situation. 

There was, for example, a certain long cloth coat on 
the list. It was to be green, of a shade indicated, and it 
was to have for trimming six Imperial Russian sable 
skins. The skins were to be of the finest quality and 
perfectly matched. No Hmit was set to the price. A 
simple matter this, in the estimation of the novice, but 
Drecoll knows better. Three of the skins desired were 
obtained without trouble, a fourth was secured after 
some search, a fifth was found far from Vienna, but the 
sixth proved a will-o'-the-wisp. Buyers chased it from 



214 IN VANITY FAIR 

one end of Europe to another. There were plenty of 
superb sables, but not one to match perfectly the other 
five, and the maker's faith was pledged, his blood was 
up. St. Petersburg, Nijni Novgorod, Leipsic, Paris, 
London, all the great fur markets knew the hunters of 
that sixth skin, and the quarry was finally run to earth 
and added to the collar of the unassuming coat provided 
for an American bride. Not one person out of a thou- 
sand could have gauged the value of the furs, could have 
understood the perfection with which they were matched, 
but one can imagine that a dressmaking establishment 
does not organize an all-Europe sable hunt for any 
small sum. 

In that matter of furs, our American women have 
become recklessly lavish. Everyone can remember the 
time when even the most fashionable of society women 
considered one ^alskin coat a cherished possession 
justifying pride. Now, women of the multi-millionaire 
set will buy a twenty-thousand-dollar sable coat as 
nonchalantly as though it were a linen duster. One 
New York importer who caters largely to the ultra swell 
clique went abroad last fall commissioned to buy three 
sable coats, two of which were to cost any sum up to 
twenty thousand dollars, while the price of the third 
might soar to thirty thousand if the buyer should find 
what he would consider good value for that sum. There 
are several forty-thousand-dollar sable coats in this 
country, and sets costing from five thousand to ten 
thousand dollars may be counted by the hundreds. 

Moreover, the fashionable woman does not content 



LES AMERICAINES 215 

herself with one set of furs, but buys them to match her 
costumes, as she would buy a veil or a pair of gloves, and 
will own perhaps a dozen sets, discarding immediately 
any that begin to show wear or are not of the latest cut. 
One Western woman bought five fur coats in New York 
this season, one a superb affair of sable, one a motor 
coat, and the other three fancy short coats trimmed in 
lace and embroidery. Now that no one with money 
spends a summer in a warm cKmate, the fashionable 
woman's furs are in commission all the year round, and 
the American, like the Parisienne, will wear her 
sables over a summer frock in August, if she is where 
the temperature is chilly. Naturally the wear and tear 
is greater than in the old days when furs were carefully 
put away during half the year, and the modern elegante's 
furs have to be frequently replenished. 

My lady's furs are only one item of many included in 
her year's wardrobe, and the other items are propor- 
tionately expensive. The heads of establishments count- 
ing among their clienteles the wealthiest women of New 
York and of the other important American cities were 
consulted in the compiling of the list that follows, and 
were asked for conservative estimates of the sums spent 
annually for goods in their lines, by a representative 
woman of the very smart set. In every case the author- 
ity consulted emphasized the fact that some of our 
women spend much more than the sum mentioned, and 
that occasionally, for some special reason, a customer 
will plunge into phenomenal extravagance. 

Here is the list, which is, after all, but a fragmentary 



2i6 IN VANITY FAIR 

one, for it is hard to estimate upon the thousand and 
one little things of dress: 

Evening gowns i^S^SOo 

Dinner gowns 3>5oo 

Carriage and reception gowns . . . . . 3,000 

Street frocks . 2,500 

Automobile and sports i^SOO 

Negligees 1,500 

Lingerie 2,500 

Furs 2,000 

Gloves, parasols, hosiery, neckwear, etc. . . 2,500 

Hats 1,200 



fc3,7oo 



The reader who has not looked into the ^matter may 
consider this sum total an exaggerated one; but, on the 
contrary, it is, while of course only approximate, a very 
modest average made up from the figures furnished by 
reliable tradesfolk in positions warranting their speaking 
authoritatively. Furs, for instance, set down at two 
thousand dollars a year, sometimes mount to forty thou- 
sand in one season. Twenty-five hundred dollars may 
seem an appalling amount to pay out for lingerie during 
the year, but one authority quoted four thousand dollars 
and another thirty-five hundred, and both added that 
there were New York women who spent even more than 
that. At Mademoiselle Corners place, — perhaps the 
most fashionable of the lingerie establishments of Paris, 
an inquirer was shown several trunkfuls of fine lingerie 



LES AMERICAINES 217 

ready to be sent to an American customer, and among 
the Items were sets of three pieces priced at nine hundred 
francs (one hundred and eighty dollars), lingerie tea- 
jackets at four hundred francs, lingerie petticoats at 
three hundred and fifty francs. At that rate twenty-five 
hundred dollars will not go so very far, and in this day 
of lingerie marvellously embellished with hand-work 
and real lace, prices mount to surprising heights. 

The elaborate negligee is of comparatively recent 
acceptance in America, but now the boudoir gown and 
tea-gown are considered important by chic Americans, 
and five hundred dollars is no unusual price for an 
exquisite tea-gown. One New York woman bought 
three at that price from a Paris maker last fall, so 
fifteen hundred dollars is surely a mild figure for the 
year's negligees. 

Twenty-five hundred dollars will not begin to pay for 
the gloves, silk stockings, parasols, fans, and such little 
accessories bought by a woman of the class under 
consideration, during a year and no estimate has been 
made upon jewels, for there the scale may slide to any 
figure. 

All this expert testimony as to the extravagance of the 
American woman of fashion may vex the souls of the 
righteous and lead the philosopher and student of social 
economy to gloomy prophecy concerning the future of 
American society, but the moralizing may be done else- 
where. Here is only a statement of facts, and it is 
undeniably a fact that the fashionable women of America 
spend more upon personal luxuries than any other class 



2i8 IN VANITY FAIR 

in the world, save only a small group of Parisian demi- 
mondaines. 

It is not only the New York woman who is extravagant, 
though since wealth is concentrated there, that city is 
the headquarters of the spenders. The spirit has spread 
all over our country, and wherever one finds great 
American fortunes, there one finds the woman of the 
costly frocks and furs and jewels. 

The largest single order ever placed with a Parisian 
dressmaker was given to Worth by a Chicago woman — 
and an elderly woman, not socially conspicuous despite 
her wealth. Twenty-five trunks were used for shipping 
the order, and one hundred and forty expensive garments 
were packed into the trays. Every city of importance 
and a host of the small towns are represented upon the 
books of the Paris houses. The City of Mexico has a 
clique of society women famous for dress, and the South 
American trade is considered very important in Paris. 
Dwellers in the States have a "magerfuF' fashion of 
appropriating the term American for their own private 
use, and appear to harbour a vague general idea that 
south of Palm Beach and Miami a bead necklace is the 
accepted costume; but the tradesfolk of Paris know 
better. Crowds of wealthy South Americans flock into 
Paris each summer and spend money lavishly upon 
clothes, jewels, and all the other luxuries of a prodigal 
civilization. In all the South American capitals one 
finds the woman of the French frock, and Buenos Ayres, 
in particular, has a smart set remarkable for the fashion 
and extravagance of its women. 



LES AMERICAINES 219 

Naturally it is not only in the province of clothes the 
money-spending mania of America asserts itself. Among 
Americans of wealth the cost of living has swelled to a 
startling figure. Numerous magnificent homes equipped 
with every luxury that money can buy, entertainment on 
a princely scale, servants by the score, horses, carriages, 
automobiles, steam-yachts, — all these are the necessi- 
ties of the multi-millionaire who is in society. The 
floral decorations for a dinner or ball often cost thou- 
sands of dollars, and five hundred dollars' worth of 
flowers for a small dinner in New York or Newport is 
no unusual order. Cotillion favours for a large ball have 
been known to cost ten thousand dollars, and thousands 
of dollars go to the caterer upon such an occasion. 

When the Castellanes, during their social career, spent 
forty thousand dollars on one evening's entertainment, 
all Paris was agog, but that sum has been far exceeded 
for single social functions in New York, and from ten 
thousand dollars to twenty thousand dollars is no 
surprising cost for a successful ball. 

Every year the social standards mount higher, in point 
of expenditure, and new methods of getting rid of 
money are added to the already long list. The motor, 
for example, has added from fifteen thousand to twenty 
thousand dollars to the annual expenditure of numerous 
wealthy men who have motor mania in its acute form, 
buy many superb cars, employ expensive machinists 
and chauffeurs, build fine garages, and race then: cars. 

But all this extraordinary lavishness is confined to a 
comparatively small part of our population, affects but 



220 IN VANITY FAIR 

a little clique of millionaires, and while even in smart 
society a large contingent is living beyond its means, a 
majority of the most extravagant American money- 
spenders have fortunes ample enough to justify their 
annual expenditures — at least from a financial point of 
viev7. It is the increasing extravagance in dress and 
luxury among the classes of more moderate incomes 
that is most interesting to a social student, and the 
American tendency is, proportionately, as marked here 
as in wealthier circles. 

All along the social line American women are spending 
more for dress than ever before. Each year marks a 
rise in the grade of goods demanded and sold, and 
manufacturers, merchants, and dressmakers all testify 
to the remarkable improvement in American standards 
of dress during recent years. 

The rise of the ready-made frock has had much to do 
with bringing about this result, and few outsiders have 
any conception of the growth and importance of this 
industry. Forty years ago very few models were brought 
to this country from Europe, and very few women even 
of the wealthiest class knew much about Paris shopping. 
As for the woman of humble social position she was 
quite out of touch with French fashion. About thirty- 
eight years ago, A. T. Stewart launched the first ready- 
made frocks, and record has it that they were frights. 
Shortly after that there were four small establishments 
in the United States manufacturing women's ready-made 
garments. To-day there are forty-eight hundred houses 
devoted to such business in New York City alone, and 



LES AMERICAINES 221 

some of the largest American dressmaking factories are 
in towns outside of New York, — in Cleveland, Chicago, 
Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Everyone of these manu- 
facturers sends men to Paris at least twice during the 
season to buy models, obtain sketches, notes, and ideas. 
Even the cheapest of the ready-made costumes to-day 
has in it some faint echo of Parisian art, and there are 
American manufacturers of ready-made coats and frocks 
who make no low-class goods at all. 

If one walks into Paquin's establishment and pays 
five hundred dollars for a frock, one feels that she is 
paying a good price, but there are specialty houses in 
New York turning out ready-made models at five hun- 
dred dollars and making nothing for less than one 
hundred dollars; and these expensive costumes find 
ready sale. 

Occasionally a woman retains the old-time prejudice 
against ready-made garments and wonders why anyone 
will pay two or three hundred dollars for a ready-made 
gown. Given a choice between a gown made to order 
by Paquin and one at the same price from a New York 
manufacturer, it would doubtless be the part of wisdom 
to take the Paquin creation; but there is no Paquin in 
New York, and though there are some exceedingly good 
dressmakers here, there are also many who charge high 
prices without the ability to justify them. Many women 
who have had disastrous experiences with such makers 
claim that, at least, in a ready-made frock one can be 
sure of the general effect, and that if it comes from a 
good maker, whether French or American, and is well 



222 IN VANITY FAIR 

cut to begin with, it will even after alteration fit better 
and do more for one's figure than a made-to-order 
gown from incompetent hands. 

There are still cheap ready-made garments on the 
market, but demand for good materials and fine work- 
manship is steadily growing and, through the efforts of 
manufacturers to meet this demand, ideas of better 
dressing have been spread broadcast. 

Fortunes have been made quickly by men who have 
kept step with this improvement in taste and supplied 
good models of Parisian design and excellent workman- 
ship for the American ready-made trade. 

One manufacturer came to this country twelve years 
ago, in the steerage, and went upon a tailor's bench at 
fifteen dollars a week. He was a Russian or Polish Jew, 
which is equivalent to saying that he belonged to the 
greatest money-making race on earth. He saved a little 
money, opened work-rooms. To-day he has a factory 
in which he employs nine hundred men and women, he 
lives in a beautiful home on Riverside Drive, he goes to 
business in a big automobile, he has done a two-million- 
dollar business within the last year — and all in ready- 
made frocks of the better grades. ^ 

There is much talk of sweat-shop labour in connection 
with women's ready-made clothing, but as a matter of 
fact only the very cheapest of the ready-made trade is 
associated with the sweat-shop. Years ago some of the 
better shops declared a crusade against such labour and 
tabooed the factories dealing with it. The other big 
firms fell in line, and manufacturers, realizing that their 



LES AMERICAINES 223 

trade was at stake, came up to the mark in respect to 
the housing, treatment, and wages of employees. 

The manufacturer of the twelve-year record has a 
factory absolutely sanitary and treats his nine hundred 
employees admirably, even supporting a small hotel in 
which he harbours any of his work folk who may be ill or 
in trouble and need help. These workers are chiefly 
Polish and Russian Jews and Italians, the German 
contingent, which was once large, having almost disap- 
peared, and wages are good. Competent men tailors 
are always in demand and can make at least from 
fifteen to eighteen dollars a week, while many of them 
get as high as from forty to eighty dollars. Some of the 
manufacturers have salesmen on the road at fifteen 
thousand dollars a year, and even pay as high as twenty- 
two thousand dollars. 

The buyers, too, command large salaries, and these 
salaried men very frequently become manufacturers 
themselves or open specialty shops for the sale of ready- 
made garments. One New York salesman, who has 
recently gone into the retail business in a comparatively 
small way, cleared one hundred thousand dollars last 
year and will do better this year. Another man of 
ability went to the head of one of the big dry-goods 
houses here and asked for a good position. 

"Why don't you open workrooms of your own ?" he 
was asked. "Haven't you any money?" 

"Only twenty-five hundred dollars." 

"That's enough. Go rent some rooms. We know 
what you can do. Let us know when you are ready 



224 IN VANITY FAIR 

and we'll place an order with you for four times twenty- 
five hundred dollars." That was eleven years ago. 
The manufacturer retired with a fortune some time 
since and amuses himself now by speculating largely in 
real estate. 

One of the few dressmaking geniuses in this country 
is another manufacturer of ready-made frocks — but of 
the highest class models only. He failed at first, — pos- 
sibly because he was a genius, but nine years ago he took 
a fresh start and now he is a millionaire — but still an 
artist. He takes a handful of silk and throws it at a 
figure, gives it a pull here, a plait there, and voila! — an 
effect better than his rivals could obtain through careful 
and painstaking labour. In Paris that man would be 
great. Here he is merely rich, and his million keeps 
him from Paris. 

All these stories of success and these business statistics 
merely serve to illustrate the point with which the 
discussion of ready-made clothing began, the increasing 
taste and extravagance of American dress. The Ameri- 
can woman, whether of wealth or of very moderate 
means, insists upon having good clothes and is getting 
them. 

Perhaps she buys them ready-made, perhaps she goes 
to Paris for them, perhaps she has them made by dress- 
makers who go to Paris for their models, but, in any 
case, she has them. For the same amount of money 
her mother spent she will obtain better artistic results, — 
but she spends more money than her mother dreamed 
of spending and more money than she herself would 



LES AMERICAINES 225 

have thought of spending ten years ago. An education 
in extravagant dress comes easily to any woman, and 
once educated to the topmost notch of the domestic 
dress production, the Parisian frock is the American's 
next requirement. 

There are good dressmakers on this side of the water, 
quite good enough to satisfy any save the hyper-fastidious, 
but our best dressmakers do not go about their business 
as do the best dressmakers of Paris. They are business 
men or women, their French fellow craftsmen are artists. 
There is in Paris the same type of dressmaker we have 
here, but there is, too, the artist dressmaker who is 
something higher in the scale, and it is through him that 
Paris is the fountain-head of fashion. There is little 
original work in dress here. Good workmanship we 
have. Our plain tailor work, for example, is the best 
in the world; but our makers are content to copy French 
ideas and French models and they have no such high 
standards as have the sponsors of those models. The 
Irish-American dressmaker is said to be, next to the 
French, the best in the world, but she adapts, she does 
not create. Perhaps in Paris she too might soar, but 
here she copies French models well, makes money, and 
is content. 

In the early spring and in August there is a migration 
of American dressmakers. By the hundred they go to 
Paris, and buyers from all over the country swell the 
crowd. Some of the important buyers have set sail 
long before, but they are men who represent exten- 
sive interests, with whom buying is a fine art and to 



226 IN VANITY FAIR 

whose expense account the home firm sets no limita- 
tions. 

One American buyer, representing the largest impor- 
ter of model gowns and cloaks in this country, a man 
better known, perhaps, than any of his profession, in the 
famous Parisian ateliers, sees the models in these ateliers 
before the ordinary buyer is given a glimpse of them. 
Yet even then they are no new things to him. He has 
seen all of their most striking features before. 

He does not drop into Paris with the buying flock, 
visit the great dressmaking establishments, and accept 
as law and gospel whatever chances to be shown there. 
He knows what is what. The dressmakers know that 
he knows and treat him accordingly. 

For months he has been on a still hunt for the fashions 
of the spring that is yet distant. He stopped in Madeira 
at the very beginning of the winter season, for he knows, 
as the Parisian dressmakers know, that an exclusive 
little coterie of the world's smartest folk begins its winter 
with a few weeks in Madeira, and that in the Funchal 
toilettes are to be found many hints that will become 
laws when springtime comes to Paris. 

Early in December the hunter follows the trail to 
Algiers and on to Cairo, though since the automobile 
has made Italian touring a fad, many of the smart folk 
spend a part of their winter in motoring, and the Algiers 
and Cairo seasons are not quite what they were as 
gathering places for the fashion clans. 

A little later the cream of the fashionable world is on 
the Riviera, and our buyer haunts the Monte Carlo 



LES AMERICAINES 227 

Casino during February. No smallest fashion straw 
escapes his watchful eye. He knows the fashion leaders 
of all Europe and America by sight. He can cap each 
striking costume with the name of the wearer, and, 
probably with the name of the maker, and he uses his 
time profitably until, late in the month, the birds of fine 
feathers take wing once more. It is almost time for 
Auteuil and, from all over the world, fashionable folk 
are pouring into Paris. 

Spring models are on view there in the great ateliers, 
and this American receives respectful attention at the 
hands of the dressmakers, for his orders will be large — 
and have been large for many years past. Moreover, 
he has by this time a very good idea of what he wants, 
and he will demand exclusive models instead of taking 
the models prepared for the majority of the dressmaking 
and buying pilgrims. He knew many of the autocrats 
of fashion when they first put up their signs and, through 
the advertisement and backing of his firm, many a Paris 
dressmaker now famous obtained the American clientele 
that was the foundation of his fortunes. 

A valuable customer this, and there are other Amer- 
icans of his class who see the best that Paris has to 
offer. Some of the more important American dress- 
makers also place large orders, insist upon exclusive 
models, and are greeted impressively by the saleswomen; 
but the most of the crowd buys as little as possible and 
sees as much as it can, and the saleswomen, fully alive 
to this fact, make a point of allowing the minor dress- 
makers to see as little as is consistent with courteous 



228 IN VANITY FAIR 

treatment. Often a group of little dressmakers will 
form a syndicate to buy one model and will go together 
to the great establishment. There, being really buyers, 
they are politely received, and they all take mental notes 
of every fashion hint that comes their way during the 
visit. They study Paris fashions, too, wherever they 
are to be seen, on the streets, in the theatres, at the 
restaurants; and during their summer visit they perhaps 
run up to Trouville to see the fashion show there. They 
have a jolly time as well as a profitable one, and after 
a few weeks come home to spread French fashion news 
from Maine to California, and furnish such adaptations 
of what they have seen as their varying abilities can 
accomplish. 

The clever buyer usually stays on in Paris after the 
crowd of his countrymen and of European dressmakers 
has departed; for the more exclusive models and ideas 
are reserved for the delectation of the chic Parisienne 
and the private buyer, and he wants to see what is 
offered to this clientele as well as what is shown to the 
trade. Finally he too sails for home, where much of 
his plunder has arrived before him. American women 
often wear a Parisian mode before it has been worn in 
Paris, and this is especially true of autumn modes; for 
Parisiennes are still away from Paris when American 
dressmakers and buyers are securing and sending over 
their autumn models, and, too, an American woman 
travelling in Europe for the summer may buy her fall 
outfit in Paris during August, bring it home and begin 
wearing it in September, before Parisiennes have left the 



LES AMERICAINES 229 

seashore and settled down to thought of fall clothes. 
This applies, however, chiefly to the few American 
fashion leaders, and a radical Parisian mode seldom 
achieves actual popularity in America before late in 
the season or perhaps the following season. The models 
have been brought over and shown, have been bought 
and worn by the knowing and courageous; but the great 
crowd of American women is slightly conservative and 
hesitates to take up any radical Parisian fad until after 
the novelty has become somewhat familiar through being 
exploited by the ultra-fashionable few. 

One of the greatest Parisian dressmakers said recently 
in a private conversation that he never felt confident of 
general popularity for an original and striking model 
until after seeing it upon one or two of his most chic 
American customers. 

"I do not know what it is," he said, "but there is 
something distinctive about the way an American wears 
her clothes, — a grace, an elegance, but also a natural- 
ness. A Frenchwoman has a genius for dress, but she 
makes up for her toilette. She is supremely artificial; 
she will wear anything that is launched and make herself 
up to fit the mode. Your American doesn't do that. 
She wears her clothes superbly, but the clothes must be 
of a kind she can wear. That a Parisienne looks w^ell 
in a model means nothing as an indication of what 
women in general will think of the innovation; but when 
I put the model upon one of my best American cus- 
tomers, I know at once what to expect. They are lovely 
in their chiflFons, those Americans, provided they have 



230 IN VANITY FAIR 

possibilities of loveliness. It is a pleasure to dress 
them." 

There are American women who go to Paris regularly 
three times a year to replenish their wardrobes, and 
these private American customers are the apple of the 
dressmaker's eye. Madame will perhaps be in Paris 
only a few days. Everything is made to bend to her 
fittings, her own particular saleswoman gives up the 
days to her, the heads of the departments are called in 
for advice and assistance, the master himself gives the 
frocks his personal attention. There is a couch in the 
private fitting-room upon which Madame may lie down 
if she becomes tired, the daintiest of luncheons will be 
served to her there if she has not time or inclination to 
go elsewhere. Everything is made so smooth, so agree- 
able, and if the bills are large, what is that to the wife 
or daughter of an American multi-millionaire ? There 
are New York women whose dressm^aking bills in Paris 
run up to fifty and sixty thousand dollars in one year, 
but who could afford to spend five hundred thousand a 
year on clothes if they chose to do it. 

Occasionally nowadays a fashion originates in America 
and crosses to Paris. The tourist coat with loose belted 
back, the long tailored coat, the walking skirt, the 
floating veil — all these were worn in New York and 
later taken up by smart Parisiennes, but the fashion 
tide usually sets the other way, and we accept slavishly 
what Paris furnishes. 

The great French dressmakers to a certain extent 
control the fashions, but they work with the manufac- 



LES AMERICAINES 231 

turers. One will see the head of a great silk factory 
sitting at a table with Beer or Paquin or Doeuillet in 
the Cafe de Paris, and talking earnestly, seriously. 
Materials for the future season are being weighed in the 
balance. The artist dressmaker is the manufacturer's 
critic, his guide, philosopher, and friend, and in this 
close connection lies one of the secrets of artistic French 
dressmaking. In Paris one can always obtain the 
wherewithal to carry out an idea. If necessary the 
manufacturer will make the material expressly for 
Monsieur's purpose, and many an exquisite fabric has 
begun and ended with one length run through the loom. 
The dressmaker and his customer wanted that especial 
thing and wanted the gown to be absolutely unique. 
Expense was not considered and one can obtain any- 
thing in Paris if one will pay for it. Once an order 
came from a great lady in Rome. She wanted a ball 
gown such as she described for a certain occasion. The 
maker had only three days' time in which to execute the 
order, and the quantities of white pansies which must 
absolutely be the trimming were not to be found in 
Paris. Discouraging ? Not in the least. Monsieur set 
a multitude of flower-makers at work making white 
pansies for him. The frock was finished and sent from 
Paris to Rome by a special messenger. Time was too 
short to admit of experiments with express companies. 
When the American dressmaker or professional buyer 
chooses a model, cards to the manufacturers who fur- 
nished the fabric and trimmings for the frock are given 
her and she buys the materials for as many duplicates 



232 IN VANITY FAIR 

of the model as she expects to make. She buys other 
materials, too, laces, buttons, novelties of all kinds, that 
will enable her to achieve frocks differing from those of 
her rivals, and skilful Parisian buying is to-day a very 
vital part of the fashionable American dressmaker's 
business. Duties upon the importations are of course 
tremendous, and during certain months the New York 
Custom House is so choked with French chiffons that 
there are maddening delays in getting the boxes through. 
Paris would miss les Americaines if they should sud- 
denly lose their interest in French clothes, but there's 
no danger of that event. Paris is the fashion centre 
and will continue to be the fashion centre. As for our 
women — each year they grow more ardent in their 
worship of the Vanities. 



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